


Together Forever With You

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Forbidden Love, M/M, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley marry in secret, and while they have to be wary of possible scrutiny from Heaven and Hell, their lives are mostly happy as they tumble through human history together, playing at tempt-and-thwart. Their bliss is interrupted when Crowley is called upon to deliver the antichrist, and the coming war threatens to separate the two. With mounting worry over their respective sides, they’re forced to walk the tightrope, working with their agents to push Warlock Dowling towards neutrality. When their fumbling best is all for naught and fear of being caught in a compromising position separates them at a crucial juncture, the two are driven to desperate defiance. A for-want-of-a-nail style AU, combining Aziraphale and Crowley’s history as lovers and husbands and a spin on the canon events of The Little Armageddon That Couldn’t.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 123
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. It's Destiny Calling

He’d known the very first time they’d met. Not everything, no, not the depth of it, not the power, not the passion. But Aziraphale had looked to the demon at his side and for a strange, brief moment, the new world he struggled to come to grips with made sense. _Oh_ , he had thought, as golden eyes pinned him in place. _Hello, you. Funny meeting like this_.

He hadn’t loved him at first sight, but he had trusted him utterly. To the core of his being, he’d found himself trusting Crowley. The love came later, for both of them, but it didn’t take its time. 

He had wittered and pined throughout antiquity, as they had met in dusty deserts and on balmy islands, and traipsed up and down the sprawl of the Roman Empire. He had _longed_ , for over seven hundred years’ acute awareness of what it was he was longing for, before the fateful day that Crowley saw his frequent invitations for what they were. An outstretched hand, an aching want.

Crowley had been shy, then, when he first arrived at Aziraphale’s doorstep with a roast pheasant in one hand and a bunch of wildflowers in the other. Aziraphale had provided the bread and the wine, they had lounged together and eaten… exchanged darting glances and little smiles. Crowley had kissed him so softly before they had parted, lingered past what was expected of a friend, though he had not kissed him as a lover either. It was enough to send Aziraphale’s heart soaring then, and every time after. 

It had been a whirlwind courtship, two hundred and twenty years between that first overture from Crowley and their marriage. The formal contract they had drawn up, promising fealty to each other over all else, promising to honor each other, to share in all joys, all woes. Crowley had whispered other promises to him, too, as they bound their hands together-- he had promised Aziraphale would never want and be unfulfilled, that he would care for him as a lover ought, as a husband ought, dizzying promises… 

It has never been safe, to be together. Aziraphale would never have wittered so long if it could have been. He’d known before 50 AD that he would gladly be destroyed for love of Crowley, but the idea of Crowley being destroyed for love of him… It remains a risk he’s uneasy with. 

He never would have agreed to arming Crowley with the holy water, if he didn’t trust him as he does, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Crowley’s side checks in more often than his own. Heaven has grown hands-off over the millennia, Aziraphale is largely allowed to do as he pleases, provided he turns the paperwork in. Crowley… Aziraphale supposes Hell trusts him as much as Hell trusts anyone-- upper management likes him a lot, which has its perks, but it also puts a target on his back. The dukes and such all know Crowley could have had a title if he’d made a few different choices early on, and they know even without one he has a certain amount of favor, and they don’t like him for it. And some of them trust him even less than the standard. The holy water was a subject of some teary debate, but it is a last resort, only to be used very carefully, only if Aziraphale isn’t there to fight for him, to keep him well away from it.

They protect each other, it’s part of the vow they made. All he can do is trust him, when he can’t be there with him. He wishes they could be together all the time, and he knows Crowley wishes the same-- when they are, Crowley holds him close. In his posh flat, in Aziraphale’s back room, or the little space over the shop, he wraps Aziraphale in his arms, makes him feel secure and so, so loved… In Crowley’s cold, empty flat, Aziraphale will bring his wings out around Crowley in return, he has the space to do so without knocking into anything, and he can feel the way Crowley relaxes into it when he does… even more than an ordinary embrace, Crowley is always relaxed in the circle of his wings. He can only hope he makes him feel just as safe as he always feels in Crowley’s arms.

They’ve spent several days apart now-- Crowley had been expecting a work call any day now, and it’s always safer to give those things a window, but it’s always lonely. Lonely, to sit at separate tables in a restaurant and catch each other’s eye across the room. Lonely to know they can’t stop at the same park bench, even as they’re both drawn to all their familiar places. Most times, even when Crowley stays at his flat and Aziraphale in his shop, they meet and talk and touch each other, but this… something about the memo Crowley had received about his upcoming meeting had him spooked. So much so that since it came in, Aziraphale has only gotten calls from payphones, words of caution and words of love.

The days feel longer and more tiring, without Crowley lounging around the shop, helping to drive off serious customers, beckoning him to take a break… just whiling away the hours with conversation. He’s used to time to himself, used to days and nights spent apart from each other, but it’s been so long since Crowley has needed to be away from him so long, not on a quick miracle-and-temptation combo, but without knowing when they would be free to meet again.

It’s not as if Aziraphale can’t occupy his time, he is surrounded by his beloved books, after all. But so often, he has read quietly while Crowley napped nearby. So often, he has been roused from a binge-reading session by Crowley bringing him a cup of tea, or settling in his lap for a companionable cuddle. He misses his husband-- he _longs_ for him. 

He comforts himself with the thought that it won’t be all that long-- not in a cosmic sense-- before Crowley is back with him, that he’s silly to worry because Crowley will come back, and when he does… oh, when he does, he will drag Aziraphale to bed-- not that he’ll need to drag him-- and Aziraphale will close up shop, and for every day that they were parted, they will reaffirm their love… They will cleave to each other. Crowley will kiss him, those heated, plundering kisses and those soft, reverent ones. Crowley will press loving kisses over Aziraphale’s heart as well. He will touch the backs of his shoulders, where the connecting joint of a wing sometimes exists… Crowley will do that thing with his tongue, also, which Aziraphale does long for, even if that longing isn’t as sharp as his desire just to be able to talk and touch.

And Crowley will complain, of course, about the meeting and the hassle and the way Hell does things, and Aziraphale will knead at his shoulders and the back of his neck until he melts, sprawled in a relaxed puddle over the soft swell of Aziraphale’s belly, comfortable in their bed…

He’s lost in a daydream about their reunion-- surely he won’t be waiting long!-- when the bell over the door gives a pleasant jingle, and his hopes are dashed when it isn’t Crowley in the doorway at all. He pastes on a polite smile by the time the two men entering the shop see him, though it’s close.

One is slight, blond, with wire-rimmed glasses that seem to take up a solid third of his face. Shoes that look brand new, an impeccably-knotted tie, and the hand that delicately grasps the pale pink linen blazer draped over his shoulders is as neatly-manicured as Aziraphale’s own. He glances about the shop with some trepidation, and he turn to sneeze against his shoulder at the dust.

His companion whips out a handkerchief before it can be requested, tilting his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head and blinking in the dim light. He pockets the handkerchief when it’s waved off as unnecessary, and Aziraphale feels a pang just watching the gesture. His darling Crowley would be as quick with a helpful gesture… He glances towards the phone, willing it to ring-- even if only another ‘I’m safe’ from a payphone somewhere in the city.

“I’m not sure this is the place.” The blond says-- his accent is American, but he speaks softly enough that it certainly doesn’t offend. “The neighborhood is right. Or-- I thought--”

“Excuse me.” The other man-- sandy-haired, with freckled arms and a bristly mustache hiding an unfortunately thin-lipped smile, stud earring in one ear-- addresses Aziraphale, breaking him from his silent battle of wills with the telephone. His own accent has certainly shaken hands with an American one, but also seems to have made a few stops around the British Isles, before settling into what it is. “Is there an… alternative bookstore on this street?”

“Sir, we specialize in antique volumes for collectors.” He sniffs. “You might be wanting ‘Intimate Books’, next door.

“No.” His face floods with color, but his composure remains largely steady. “That’s… not quite what we’d be wanting. Thank you.”

His trousers, Aziraphale notes, are the same pastel linen as the oversized blazer draped over his companion’s shoulders. Not that Aziraphale didn’t know from the proffering of the handkerchief, but it is another detail that touches him, and he clears his throat.

“We do have a shelf.” He says, before they can go. 

“Hm?”

“If what you’re looking for isn’t quite the sort they sell next door, we do have a shelf.” He gestures to his shop’s sole concession to trying to be a business, a shelf beneath a beam of sunlight, which has somehow escaped the dust of the rest of the shop, and its array of both modern reprints of certain literary classics, and books containing useful information. There is a single shrink-wrapped volume up at the top, but most of his stock is… well, a far cry from what they sell at ‘Intimate Books’.

He leaves them to their shopping, to their whispered conversation. The sound of hushed playful laughter. He watches the telephone, but it still doesn’t ring. Eventually, the pair comes up to the till-- a copy of ‘Better Angel’ and one of ‘The Male Couple’-- as well as the single shrink-wrapped volume. They don’t meet Aziraphale’s eye when he gets to that one, but he keeps the warmest version of his customer service smile in place as he rings it up and bags it with the others. 

“My husband is quite fond of that one.” He adds, and they relax. “There’s your total, gentlemen.”

“Husband…” The sandy-haired man breathes the word out as he fumbles with his wallet.

“Well, in our own little way.” Aziraphale’s smile brightens. “Work has him run ragged, I’m just waiting on a call from him to let me know whether to bother making dinner for two tonight, but I suppose there are always times like this… one has to learn to be a little independent. Well-- I choose to think it’s a good sign that after so many years, it doesn’t take me long at all to miss the sound of his voice. There you go, dears, and let me slip you some business cards-- there we are, tucked in there, that’s for a nice quiet place for drinks you’ll find to be friendly, and a nice discreet little shop, and the last one’s just for a sushi restaurant not far from here, but it’s _very_ good. You have a nice day, then.”

Beyond those two, he only gets in a single browser and no other buyers, which is fine. He closes up shop as soon as it doesn’t feel like he’s dodging a responsibility, and he buries himself in his own reading, not feeling particularly peckish without Crowley there to enjoy a meal with. He’s usually perfectly happy to eat alone, but it’s been too long. Life’s little pleasures are distinctly dulled by worry.

They must have contacted Crowley by now, but when will they be finished with him? How much worse will it be than an ordinary temptation? They like him down there, Aziraphale tries to remind himself. Upper management does, at any rate. Crowley turns in results, and while not every demon appreciates his innovation, his bosses are a different story, they wouldn’t… they wouldn’t hurt him. Would they? 

Suppose they had found out, though? Suppose somehow he and Crowley were not so careful, and suppose someone saw them? They do their best, but they have not always been careful-- even with the care they take, what more could they do? Forego being together? It would destroy them as surely as any enemies in Heaven or Hell ever could. 

He’s fretting over a book whose pages he does not see, when he hears signs of life in the flat above the shop. _Crowley_. Aziraphale closes his book and hurries up-- so Crowley had taken his car back to his own flat, flown from the roof of his building to the postage-stamp sized terrace off of their bedroom here… avoiding being seen by anyone looking for him at street level, but free to return home. Not home to the flat over the bookshop, but home to _Aziraphale_ \-- that’s what home is for them, being together. 

Aziraphale hurries upstairs, finding Crowley bent over the wine rack.

“Hullo, dear.” He sighs, moving to wrap his arms around him. “Oh-- Crowley, you’re-- dearheart, what’s wrong?”

He’s paler than usual, his hands shaky… he’s unhurt, but he’s rattled, and Aziraphale’s heart lurches.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley abandons the search for a bottle of wine in favor of throwing himself into Aziraphale’s embrace, his voice rough. “Aziraphale…”

“Hush, love, hush… give yourself a moment. Oh, I’ve missed you so much, my darling-- but you’re here now, we’ll be all right so long as you’re here. Have they asked you for something very awful?” Aziraphale carefully takes down the half-ponytail, pocketing the elastic and running his fingers through the soft waves.

“Delivered a baby.” He mumbles the words against the side of Aziraphale’s head, nose buried in his curls. 

“... What, in an elevator? Come and sit and let me pour you a drink.” Aziraphale urges. Crowley takes care of him so often… Crowley is always finding little ways of caring for him, in fact. When Crowley needs it, how could he do anything but his best to repay that care?

“No. I mean, yes, wine-- pour yourself one as well. A generous one.” Crowley nods, sprawling onto the sofa. When Aziraphale joins him with the wine, he downs half his very generous glass in one go before dragging the back of one hand across his mouth. “Wasn’t an elevator. Wasn’t a-- When I say ‘delivered’, I mean… I mean they handed me the baby and I took it to the-- the humans. And they swapped it out. Dunno what they did with the real human baby. Didn’t stick around to find out.”

Aziraphale goes cold, draining his own glass.

“I see.” He says.

“Mm.” Crowley finishes his own off and sets the glass aside, beckoning Aziraphale into his arms. Aziraphale goes readily. The world has stopped spinning at the speed it always has, the world has ceased to operate the way it ought. 

He buries his face against Crowley as the sob tears its way out of him, and then another. Crowley’s hands still shake as they stroke at his hair and his back, but they are gentle, they try to be steady.

“How long--?”

“Eleven years.” Crowley’s hands tighten on him a moment, and Aziraphale can feel the bobbing of Crowley’s throat when he swallows. “We have eleven years.”

“We were meant to have eternity.”

“They were always going to try and end it. I’d just… put off thinking about it. Aziraphale… do you remember the day we met?”

“Like it was _yesterday_ , darling.”

“You caught my eye at first just by being there. Just by being an angel, and… I don’t know. And I used to be one. And I wondered if you would speak to me, and you did. But it was when you told me you’d given them your sword… in that moment, I’d have… I’d have done anything for you, I think, if you had asked me. Wouldn’t have known it was love, but I’d have…”

Aziraphale nuzzles in tighter. Eleven years is hardly enough time to cling to each other and recount their own history and their feelings… He won’t open the shop tomorrow, he thinks. He will stay right here in Crowley’s arms and if Crowley would spend the rest of the time they have just like this, Aziraphale will.

“When you first came to me as a lover, Crowley… when I finally knew you burned as I did… I think I forgot there would ever have to be another war, not in a world so wonderful as to allow us to exist.” 

“Have to be…” Crowley wipes the tears from Aziraphale’s face, easing him up out of the crook of his neck. “But there doesn’t-- does there? Not in a world so wonderful… If you and I could…”

“Crowley?”

“You gave your sword up to save them. In doing so, you made it possible for me to come near you, and be safe. Do it again. _Aziraphale… do it again_.”

“Crowley?”

“We could stop it.” He cups Aziraphale’s face, a frantic energy lighting his golden eyes, and Aziraphale surges forward to kiss him. 

“Do you really think so?”

“I don’t know how-- not yet-- but we have to try. Aziraphale, I’m not going to lose you now.”

No… no, Aziraphale doesn’t suppose he will. He can remember the day they married so clearly. The ink drying on the contract he had written up for them to sign… he’d written it out as beautifully as he possibly could, he’d made inks of his own, but he had also bought the gold, had wanted it to be a work of art as well as a binding document. He remembers the softest little intake of breath, when he had placed the quill he’d cut in Crowley’s hand-- Crowley has it still, kept in his office, though no longer in use. He remembers Crowley’s hesitation, before he’d whispered to him to sign his _true_ name, the name he had chosen for himself. That was when Aziraphale had chosen his spelling, a spur of the moment decision, a way of aligning himself further with _Crowley_ , by making his name a bit more into his own. They’d promised something then, that it was them against… well, against anything that might try to part them. Against the world-- no, _for_ the world, earth was the one place where they could exist.

And now… it was time to test the strength of that commitment. 

“Whither thou goest.” He promises, his hands moving to Crowley’s cheeks, to mirror the way Crowley holds him. “Of course, Crowley. We… we shall come up with a plan.”

“Tomorrow.” Crowley groans, and he kisses him, and there’s a question behind it, and a heat.

Aziraphale finds his own libido has fled him, in the face of this, but he can’t imagine refusing Crowley the comfort. He kisses back, warm and tender, a silent promise. 

It’s slow-- by mortal standards, at any rate-- when they do move each other to the bedroom. It’s hands everywhere, it’s care taken. It’s kisses traded as they make a thorough re-exploration of each other after their time apart. 

“Nothing yet?” Crowley teases, with a little smirk, his hand cupped over the smooth expanse between Aziraphale’s legs. 

“I haven’t bothered with having anything down there while you were away.” He confesses, not that Crowley doesn’t already know. It’s the same whenever they’re apart for any real length of time. No sense in making the effort, with no husband close at hand. “And… I admit, when I think about what’s coming in eleven years’ time, I…”

“We don’t have to.”

“I want to. For you.” His hand moves once more to Crowley’s face, thumb tracing the jut of his cheekbone. So sharp… the shapes of him are all hard edges and angles, and yet when he moves he is sinuous as smoke or water. Beautiful… “It pleases me to please you. It comforts me to have you close. I don’t need to… you know. I still get something out of it. Besides, I know you like my thighs very much and I do believe the last time you made it to a payphone, you told me how much you were missing them.”

Both Crowley’s hands fall to Aziraphale’s thighs, and he lets out a sound of pure desire, a growl and a hiss and a purr and a sharp sucked-in breath. He surges forward, pushing Aziraphale down to the mattress, slithering between his legs the moment they fall open for him. First, just to kiss him again, to feel the press of their bodies and to enjoy Aziraphale’s touch, hands roaming over his back, massaging at tense muscles, moving between shoulders and buttocks.

They work their way up gradually, Aziraphale enjoying the little sounds muffled into his throat, the feeling of Crowley’s adoration washing over him. The hardness pressing into his hip, his belly, and then finally, settling down between his thighs as he closes them to give Crowley the closeness, the warmth of his body, the softest skin. Crowley’s hands tremble, curled around his neck, squeezing at his thigh, they cling to each other for strength. 

It helps, he thinks-- at least, Aziraphale feels better, when he feels Crowley stiffen and shudder, and slump against him. It helps to feel Crowley’s breath warm against his skin. He runs his fingers through Crowley’s hair as he feels him come down to earth again. Such beautiful hair. He’s always changing it, it’s always lovely. There’s a beautiful contrast in his coloring, the depth of his glossy hair and the warm-toned pale of his skin, and the deep, bright gold of his eyes… he’s always so handsome, but Aziraphale thinks he’s at his most beautiful like this, when his hair is wild, when the sweat still glitters on his skin, and his eyes are so beautiful, hazed over with love. When his smile is at its softest, and he speaks in a lazy lisp, and he is unguarded, all of his trust in Aziraphale to guard him.

“We’ll fix it.” Aziraphale says, pushing the hair back from Crowley’s face, smiling at the way Crowley pushes into his touch. “We’ll be together.”

“Tomorrow, we’ll figure it out.” Crowley nods, kisses his wrist. Giving his pulse point a flicker of forked tongue. He waves his hand, and Aziraphale feels the slickness between his thighs vanish. “Aziraphale…”

“If… if things progress… I’ll ask for asylum for you. I can prove that you’ve acted in Heaven’s interests, throughout the course of human history. You have always-- well, nearly always-- helped me, and that must count for something.”

“Ah, but you’ve acted in Hell’s…”

“They don’t need to know that. If I only tell them you’ve aided me, then perhaps… And if that is not enough, or if they ask why I care to protect you… I’ll tell them the truth.”

“Aziraphale--”

“You are my husband. Under…” He jerks his head up towards the ceiling, with a nervous look. “I know it wasn’t presided by any human clergy, nor was it done on hallowed ground, for obvious reasons, but it was… but in the contract we drew up, I wrote it… We can hide from Hell and we can hide from Heaven, but in all this time the Almighty has never struck us down for it, and that’s a good enough argument, to say it may be sanctioned. Crowley… you are my _husband_. We cannot be parted.”

“They won’t take it. It’s not holy. They’ll think it best to part you from me.”

“If Heaven won’t take you, Hell will take me.”

“ _Aziraphale_ \--”

“Hell will have to take me. Hell won’t have a choice. I’ll be Fallen. Crowley, if Heaven won’t allow you asylum, I will Fall. I won’t let them place us on opposite sides of a battlefield.”

“I don’t want you to. Hell’s not for you, love.”

“And Heaven’s not for you, but you would go, to be with me.”

“It’s different. I’ve _been_ in Heaven before. I know what I don’t like about it, but I know I can hack it if they’d accept me-- not that I trust they would. I don’t think there’s anything that would convince them a demon can be rehabilitated. Not even by your love.” He kisses the corner of Aziraphale’s lips. “Good as that is. Aziraphale, I know what Hell is like, and I know you. I love you, but you can’t handle Hell.”

“I can’t handle being asked to fight you. I can handle Hell, if you’re with me.” His lips land on Crowley’s chin, and he trails a few more kisses up, landing at his lips, his cheek, a meandering path to the end of his nose. “If that’s where I have to be, you’ll protect me. Just as I’d protect you, if I can bring you with me.”

“I know you will, I know you will… I know you will.” Crowley nuzzles his way back into Aziraphale’s throat, giving him a soft nip. “But I don’t want things to come to that.”

“Hush, dear, and rest. And we’ll figure it out. I’ll still be here when you wake.”

There’s no room to stretch his wings out in his cramped little bedroom, to wrap them around Crowley, but his room feels safer than Crowley’s, most of the time… he knows Crowley sleeps better here, outside of not being allowed his wing blanket. He pulls his duvet up over Crowley’s back, more than content to remain in bed, to watch over him while he sleeps off the immediate shock of it. 

It’s a lot to take in. Now, with Crowley asleep, it feels as if it’s all sinking in at last. The end of it all… There are things about which Aziraphale can be certain-- he always knew he would Fall if it came between being an angel and being a husband. He knew that early into their courtship, if not before. Sometimes he thinks a part of him knew it before they ever courted. 

There are things about the world he would miss, if they lost it. If they had to choose a side together, if the war went on, he would miss the earth and the things and people on it… but he could lose them. He could lose his comfortable furnishings and his beloved collections, he could lose his favorite pieces of clothing, his wine and his cocoa. He could say goodbye to the duck pond in St. James and weekend trips out of town. He could no more enjoy dining at the Ritz, going for sushi, even the little hole in the wall where he would always get the salmon and Crowley would always get the meatball appetizer-- and always feed him a couple, in exchange for a little taste. If he never again got to tuck into a nice pudding at a cozy restaurant, or nibble on a little something of an evening when curled up against Crowley’s side before the fancy fireplace in his fancy flat, he would bear up under the ache of the loss. As for losing the mortals they’ve grown friendly with, their lives are brief-- as much as he loves them, and he does, he is always prepared for goodbye.

But if they took Crowley from him? How could he carry on? How could he take up arms, not knowing if they would meet on the battlefield? He already finds the idea distasteful enough as it is-- he’s not sure he could find it in him. Not unless he and Crowley were fighting on the same side, to defend each other. He’s never been at ease with violence. 

The worst of it is, Crowley may not be the rule, but he’s not all exception, either. Aziraphale knows this. He knows for every demon who is evil incarnate, there are two or three who just want to keep their heads down and do their jobs, who don’t particularly care either way. If another demon with no real evil in their heart had been in Crowley’s place, they might have been friends after a fashion. Not right away, the way it seemed with Crowley. It would never be the same kind of love, he can’t imagine that. But he can’t pretend, knowing what he knows, that there aren’t demons out there he would find perfectly agreeable company. The demons who greet Crowley with a smile and a bit of friendly chat, Aziraphale would have got on with those sorts. Just as the few angels who are a little less strict, a little more warm, just as they might have befriended Crowley in Aziraphale’s absence, if things had been different once. They’re not so different-- he couldn’t be married to Crowley so long and not see that.

He doesn’t want to smite demons just because they aren’t his beloved Crowley, just because some of them might be a bit more evil, just because he’s been told. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Maybe he’s gone soft in his time on earth. Wouldn’t anyone, if they’d been here as long as he and Crowley have? Wouldn’t anyone ask if there really had to be a war?

Crowley sleeps deeply, though not for long-- he starts stirring in Aziraphale’s arms mid-morning, by noon he’s fully awake, though for a long moment he’s silent. He holds on tight and buries his face against Aziraphale with purpose, Aziraphale can feel the change in his breathing. The little kisses he drops to throat and chest, as he scrunches himself down beneath the duvet.

“Disappearing on me already?” Aziraphale peels back the covers, and Crowley meets his eyes, sharing a sad little smile.

“I want to be warm.”

“Oh, very well. A little while. But then I’m going to make us a little something! And I would like to _see_ my husband.”

“A little while.” Crowley promises, and then his lips are traveling over Aziraphale’s belly, and his hands, mapping him out in the dark beneath the duvet. There’s no sexual intent behind it, it’s just soft. Familiar. There is no part of Aziraphale Crowley has not kissed. The places he’s undressed to make love to, the places he’s asked Aziraphale to manifest for him that he might complete his worship, the places he’s lifted from a tub of warm and sweetly-scented water because he needed to mark his devotion…

And, there is no part of Crowley that Aziraphale hasn’t kissed, at least once. He remembers, back when they were first courting… he’d knelt before Crowley to wash his feet, when he’d had him in his home once, he’d felt so strangely bold. He’d been holding one foot, half wrapped in a clean linen, he’d let his lips grace the instep, very near the ankle, which was as close to kissing a foot as he thought anyone ought to get, but the gesture had gotten his point across. 

He lets Crowley carry on, closes his eyes and focuses on the softness of his skin, the shape of his lips, the way his touch is light and then firm from one moment to the next. The brief flicker of his tongue and the tickle of his breath, and his hands, the way they dig in just so, gentle, at Aziraphale’s hips, thumbs pressing up into the padding of his love handles, the way they wrap around him. The way the span of those hands can’t contain the bulk of him and yet he feels so secure, so _held_.

“The world will look better over a cup of tea.” He suggests gently, when he feels Crowley sob, once, against his lap, a shaking lump down at the end of the bed. “Please, dearest… darling old thing, and an egg. Bacon, if you’d like it. Let me take care of you.”

“If you’re having some.” He says at last, his voice thick. “Wait-- I’ll come into the kitchen.”

“I was going to put the kettle on and have a bite. I think better on a full stomach than on an empty one.”

“I think best on your stomach.” Crowley teases, kisses him one last time, right where he hasn’t bothered to have a navel. 

Crowley’s arm emerges first, his hand groping blindly, and Aziraphale places his sunglasses in it, so that Crowley will have them before he comes out from under the duvet and into the full light of day pouring through the window onto the bed. Though most of the plants are at Crowley’s flat, a few have made a happy home with Aziraphale, the ones that like his windowsills. 

Crowley stays cocooned in bed a little longer, to watch Aziraphale dress, before he miracles his own clothing on. It’s a suit Aziraphale recognizes-- it’s one he knows Crowley conjures up when he wants to feel a bit of control. 

“You look very sharp.” He kisses his cheek. Crowley’s hand slips into his for a squeeze, before they make their way to the kitchen. 

Just eggs and bacon and toast, Aziraphale thinks-- he’s in no mood for a full spread or a lot of work, but they’ll feel better if they have something. Crowley doesn’t care for a full stomach unless he plans on sleeping for a couple of days, but he likes a taste. He likes the salt of the butter and the bacon, he likes the smoky bittersweetness of his favorite tea blend-- lapsang souchong, assam, oolong, puerh. No sugar. A tiny splash of cream today, Aziraphale thinks, he takes a splash of cream when he’s feeling low, but he doesn’t like it too sweet… 

Aziraphale makes himself a cup of cocoa, rather than getting out his lavender earl grey. He deserves the extra comfort-- and unlike Crowley, he wants more sweetness when he’s not feeling right. Decadent, for breakfast, but… well, what does it matter?

Crowley sits by and fidgets until Aziraphale has his tea for him, and he looks up with such a gratitude, hands wrapping around the mug. Crowley’s mug, his favorite of the ones he kept at Aziraphale’s, which falsely proclaimed him to have been born in the year of the snake, and which had rather lovely art. Aziraphale selects a mug of his own, one with a little watercolor-y songbird on one side, and touches it gently to Crowley’s with a soft clink. 

Before long, they have a plate of food between them, which they both pick at with dampened enthusiasm. As much as he won’t feel better going without, it’s hard to fully enjoy it the way he thought he’d be enjoying their first meal together. It helps when Crowley feeds him a bite of the bacon, before popping the rest into his own mouth. It feels… closer to normal. 

“It’s just a shame we can’t raise the boy ourselves.” Crowley sighs, poking at the wobbly yolk of his egg. 

“What?” Aziraphale freezes, staring, a vise clamped down upon his heart. They’ve discussed in terse, pained sentences just why they could never… “So your side or mine could come destroy all three of us in one fell swoop?”

“So he’d get both sides of the story. Oh, don’t-- I know we can’t.”

“... Both sides of the story.” Aziraphale’s fork falls. “Crowley, that’s--”

“But we can’t. Because my side, or yours, would destroy us well before any war could get underway. Might buy the earth a few years but it won’t do much for us.”

Aziraphale bites his lip, and doesn’t admit that he would rather be destroyed alongside Crowley than face an eternity without him. 

“We couldn’t, no. But suppose he was influenced, growing up? Both sides. Mightn’t he just… not start the war?”

“We can’t. We-- I know you, Aziraphale. You’ll get attached.” Crowley says, as if he wouldn’t. If they were raising a child, together, Aziraphale knows that he would. “It’s too dangerous.”

“We could place people. Crowley… the idea is solid, it just can’t be hands-on.”

“I don’t know.” He pokes at his egg a little more, until Aziraphale reaches over and takes his fork, scooping some egg onto a piece of toast and holding it out to him. “You’re talking about some serious interference, you can’t tell me there wouldn’t be scrutiny on your end. I know you have the authority to set an angel to work if there’s call, but we can’t trust them with this… we can’t. They’ll ask how you found out, it’s too soon to tip our hand if we can avoid the whole mess instead. Suppose we avert a war only to make ourselves criminals? I mean I can place someone, no problem. Probably get a pat on the back for sticking on my assignment and going above and beyond to see nothing goes wrong, if I do it. But you?”

“Not an angel, then. You’re right about that, it’s… it’s too soon to resort to asking Heaven’s help.” He sighs. “I have faith, but anyone up there is going to have a difficult time extending any trust to you, even if I was to say you’d betrayed Hell to me and wanted to change sides. There…”

“What?” Crowley reaches up, touching his cheek, forcing eye contact at the sight of his pained expression, the tight line of his mouth. 

“There have been others.” He admits, pained. “Demons, who… There have been petitions, over the years. Early on, it was all early on. Most… most wanted to come back to the fold just after the Fall. Before Eden, before you and I met. It was… something of a joke, to some of our side.”

“Still something of a joke, to some of ours. Demons are a fickle lot.” 

That teases a laugh out of Aziraphale. Fickle is hardly the word to apply to Crowley… 

“You would be different. None of the others had someone willing to vouch for them. They were crawling back because they’d lost a bet, taken the wrong side in a war and regretted it, but you really have helped me, been loyal to me. That will count for something. But it won’t be easy. Oh, my dear… it’s our second to last resort, I suppose, but you would be different.”

“If you say.” Crowley says, in the same tone he uses when Aziraphale has the wrong of it in a debate, and he wants to smooth the whole affair over and go to dinner, dignities uninjured. 

“I could put someone onto it, who… who wouldn’t be beholden to any angels. Who would be beholden to mankind before the angels.”

“Like who?”

“A saint, maybe. There are saints enough up there and they do go to work. One of them would be limited, but capable, for a miracle. And they’d have the freedom to act on earth’s behalf the way the angels can’t be.”

“Well, choose carefully.”

“And you? You might be able to conscript a demon without scrutiny, but I imagine choice still matters.”

“Mm, I know who I’d ask. She’s… a bit too far into the party line to talk to for long, but not a bad sort-- well, for a demon.”

“Hush, now, I happen to think highly of some demons.” Aziraphale smiles. His spirits are already lighter. Just having the ghost of a plan is improving his outlook. 

“She likes kids, that’s the important thing. She’s good with them. I mean, setting aside the part where she’ll instruct him to lay waste to his enemies, she-- she loves kids. No danger of a real deep attachment, but she’ll actually care for him, properly.”

“Equal access is going to be the problem. Of course, a saint gets around one problem-- your agent won’t sniff out an angel if there’s no angel present.”

“Yeah, yeah-- no, no, I tell her. Obviously not that you’ve placed your own agent on the antichrist, but-- a test of his powers, yeah? Tell her you’re trying to put agents onto various diplomats to bring about world peace, and if she wants to throw a monkey wrench in Heaven’s plans while simultaneously strengthening our own position, she needs to hand the kid over to your man. He’s distracted from his purpose, but as an agent of Heaven, he can’t refuse to help watch a little sprog, right? Meanwhile, our young master’s infernal powers are weakening his overall… you know. Thing.” Crowley waves a hand. He pops a bite of toast into Aziraphale’s mouth, smile triumphant. “Right?”

“Mm-- Right. Naturally! That sort of aura of evil would be a corrupting influence upon a mere human agent of goodness. And if he can corrupt a saint by age four, why, think of what he might do against a lesser angel at age-- eleven, did you say? It’s just good practice!”

“... He can’t, can he? Really do that? Corrupt a saint?”

“No. No, I’ll be sure of it. The important thing is getting them placed, and then following their progress. But… it could work!”

Crowley nods, one hand finding Aziraphale’s across the little table, trembling fingers holding tight-- Aziraphale only realizes he’s shaking when he feels the tremor that runs through Crowley as well. Well, so be it, they can shake together.

They still take the day for themselves. They walk through the park after their breakfast, arm in arm. They do a bit of shopping for things they don’t need, just because they can’t be sure they won’t run out of chances-- neither acknowledges the frightened undercurrent of their expedition, but it floats there between them as Crowley picks out a soft throw blanket for his couch, in Aziraphale’s colors, as Aziraphale picks out a sleek, modern decanter to keep at his place, to aerate a bottle of one of Crowley’s favorite wines.

“I feel a little reckless.” Aziraphale admits. “When I think of it… I feel as if things… That I could have you near me, more.”

It’s as close as he’ll come to mentioning how close they are to losing it all. Crowley knows him well enough to fill in the blanks, and well enough not to do so aloud. 

“Reckless, hm? Angel, that’s just what I like to hear. Allow me… to tempt you. Where shall we go? Sushi? That little place in Soho, with the sauce you like? The Savoy? _The Ritz_?”

A pleasant shiver runs up his spine at Crowley’s tone, the smooth shift from dark thoughts to sweet ones. 

“Your turn to choose, I think.” Aziraphale takes his arm, and stands a little taller. He feels graceful in a way he rarely does-- he feels ethereal, in a way he’s long been disconnected from, light and airy and serene.

The Ritz is for celebrations. There are other places, for hiding in corners and drowning sorrows, but the Ritz is for celebrations. The Ritz is where Crowley takes him this evening, to drink to their plan-- though they don’t discuss it at the table. Still, they can celebrate having a plan, and when they return to the shop, to toast each other again and tangle into each other on the couch, they can hash out the details a little more fully. 

This time, when Aziraphale leads Crowley up to bed, he makes the effort.

In the morning, there is work to be done, and lots of it, but with a judicial use of powers, it’s nothing they can’t handle. They part, to set things up from either side, and they reconvene at Crowley’s flat a few days later to compare notes, and to reconnect.

Aziraphale’s wings come out the moment the shades are drawn. Crowley lights the fireplace with a snap of his fingers, strips them each to the waist with another. The new blanket makes the space cozier-- the wine and fondue, cozier still.

“My agent’s in place.” Crowley offers Aziraphale the first bite, molten cheese dripping from a cube of bread. It does not occur to Aziraphale that it might burn his tongue, and so it doesn’t. “She’s on board with the plan as I’ve explained it to her. Every time she suspects your man is about to make headway with his ‘mission’, she’ll be shoving a baby at him and asking him to be a lamb.”

“He’ll be ready, I’ve got him the job. I feel bad fudging the CV like that, you know, but he hasn’t had any earthly work experience since the twelve hundreds.”

Crowley barks out a laugh. 

Their wings fill some of the empty space, it makes the flat feel less cold. Aziraphale has to admit, they match the stark white-and-black decor quite nicely. It’s a lot of white, for a demon’s private sanctuary, but Crowley had said it was stylish, the sort of thing humans would be falling over themselves to replicate in only a few years’ time. Aziraphale hardly remembers what the place had looked like before Crowley’s renovations, though he remembers a place he’d had before this. He’d been in Soho, for a little while-- they hadn’t been able to handle even that small distance, at the time, yet they weren’t free to live together. Crowley’s place had been cutting edge for the nineteen fifties, but he hadn’t had any real love for it. It was only a place to be when they couldn’t be home to each other. He’d stayed there a while, until it went from a balm to know they were only a couple of blocks apart, and more of a temptation to meet too often. Crowley had zipped back to Mayfair the night they were nearly caught in a clinch in an alleyway, by Aziraphale’s people. 

He hadn’t done the renovations all at once. He’d taken a bit of time and flipped through a few magazines for inspiration, but Aziraphale only saw the place once before he’d given it the white marble floors and stark walls. After that it was finding the right pieces of too-angular leather furniture, swapping out kitchen cabinets with casual miracles, adding even more plants-- though he’d left most of the Soho plants with Aziraphale, that was when he’d begun his indoor gardening, when he’d been in Soho... Putting up his art. Aziraphale remembers the in-between stages as a bit of a blur, and he expects that the act of renovating was another hobby for Crowley, a way to keep busy when they were parted by circumstance. A lot of the changes had happened while Aziraphale was on assignment. Peru, he thinks.

They feed each other. Fingertips glide along the leading edges of wings, wine comes dangerously close to sloshing past the rim of a glass. Kisses grow warmer, and linger on for longer. 

“Do you know something, Crowley?” Aziraphale hums, as Crowley’s wing folds around him and draws him in closer.

“Tell me.”

“There was a couple in my shop the other day-- I’d quite forgotten, in the excitement of having you home. I’d forgotten… Two men. I’d told them I was waiting for my husband to call, and it seemed to mean so much, that I used the word.”

“Mm.” Crowley doesn’t press him about where the story is going or what the point of it even is. His touch is patient, as his fingers walk up Aziraphale’s arm. His expression is so _open_ , and it aches to remember how infrequently he allows himself to be open this way. 

“I don’t know. I suppose, remembering them, I wish… I wish that I could tell them now… I wish I could say they ought to claim it themselves. I wish I could tell them to live their lives like-- well…”

“Like it could all end tomorrow?”

“Or in eleven years.” He shrugs. “It’s not a bad timeline to work up your courage in.”

Crowley’s touch skims up from shoulder to neck to cheek. He leans in until their noses touch.

“You could find them. Harmless little miracle. You could tell them. Pretty sure your side would count that as angelic work. Not about the world ending, just… about living.”

“Perhaps. They’re words I think a great many people could stand to hear.” He smiles, and buries both hands in the thick silken warmth of Crowley’s feathers. His skin is often cool, but his wings are always warm… “It isn’t just about sex, of course. Race, class, religion… human beings invent so many ways of denying happiness to each other and to themselves. So many ways of saying a love is wrong. But it isn’t, is it? It’s never wrong, to love. Not real love.”

“Not real love.” Crowley agrees. “Not love like ours. Not that there’s any love like ours…”

“Do you remember… wasn’t it Venice?” Aziraphale licks his lips. They had gotten rather _experimental_ in Venice, some couple hundred years back. Crowley had wasted no time in saying the little fifth honeymoon saved an otherwise abysmal century-- though even so, it was hardly shaping up to be his least favorite century without the trip.

At least, Aziraphale _thinks_ it was their fifth honeymoon. They’d had a mad idea once, about honeymooning in every country, but the countries changed so fast then that it was always going to be a silly pipe dream. The map is more settled now… if they could keep the whole world going up in flames, they could cross the rest off the list. Or start over-- most places weren’t at all the same countries that they had been then. They could get a big map and mark places off with pins.

“Which night in Venice?” Crowley leans in closer still, both wings wrapping Aziraphale up, pressing him in to Crowley’s chest. His voice is low and practically a purr, and Aziraphale massages at the base of those wings. 

“You fell asleep still in me. Your idea to use a bit of demonic stamina for sexual purposes… only you hadn’t thought to call upon any otherworldly reserves of energy for staying awake. But I’d… I’d treasured it.”

“Did you? Sounds like I was a bit of a dud, to me.”

“Well… but I always liked being close. And besides… it was only a little nap, eventually we did finish. I didn’t mind a break in the middle. Watching you sleep… just being connected to you.”

“Watching me sleep really does it for you?”

“Emotionally speaking.”

“And how about now, hm?” Crowley’s breath tickles his ear, hot. “What would you treasure tonight?”

“Your happiness. And your love.”

“Don’t play coy with me now, angel. Tell me… let me please you.”

“Oh, please me, please me, by all means.” He murmurs, lying back-- pulling Crowley after him. There are enough cushions piled around to make it comfortable enough, to give him some support that doesn’t leave his wings uncomfortably pinned beneath them. A bit of careful fluffing and shifting and he can wrap them around Crowley. “Do you remember our first time?”

“I remember it began rather like this.” Crowley grins down at him, teeth glinting sharp and white, eyes warm like honey. “Were we in Crete then? I remember there were stuffed grape leaves. And I remember there was… oh, wine. And something… something I fed you, you licked olive oil from my fingers after. And… and an apple. I cut it into slices, you drizzled them in honey. I recall I was… not content to lounge beside you. Your lap was too warm and inviting.”

“And there you were, all of a sudden, pressing me down into the cushions. I could still taste wine and honey on my tongue and then you kissed me…”

They had kissed before, of course, but it was different that night… Aziraphale remembers it had been such a busy time for them both, they had been moving all around for work, but moving enough in the same directions that Crowley had been free to keep up his courtship, and it was so dizzyingly sweet. And he’d grown so tired of saying goodnight and seeing Crowley go, when they both knew one of them would eventually move onto the next job, when it was more difficult to keep track of each other and find each other again. 

“You asked me to be your lover.” Crowley says, and his grin softens. Nearly everything about him softens. “I’d never… and you’d never. But I remember… I remember undressing you, there by the fire. How lovely you were.”

“It was the first time I’d ever…” Aziraphale laughs and leans up to kiss him. “It was the first time I ever bothered having something down there.”

“Was it? You’d never been to a public bath before then?”

“Not before.” He shakes his head. “I never really needed to. After, though. Once I’d gotten it down, there was no reason not to. I remember we both got to rather like the steam baths… Turkey? Must have been. But that was after. I’d never done it before that night with you. And you called it--”

“Cute.” Crowley finishes. “You were cute, every last inch of you, new inches included. I adored you. I hardly knew what to do with you. I mean, I’d seen-- you know, people. I’d seen people do all sorts of things, but none of them seemed… Looking at you like that, the first time, nothing ever felt so important to me, as you. Loving you right.”

“I never would have known you were nervous, you know. If you hadn’t told me you were, later. You were so gentle with me, and so smooth.”

“Only you could see the absolute mess of me and still think me smooth.”

“You are when it counts.” Aziraphale traces a finger down Crowley’s chest. “You were then. The way that you kissed me.”

“I was shaking like a _leaf_ when I asked you what you thought you’d prefer, if you were certain.”

“I didn’t see it then. Of course, I think I was trembling a bit myself. And then you did that thing, with your tongue.”

“Mm, and with the olive oil.” Crowley chuckles. “... And with my tongue and the olive oil.”

“Well… if you’d like to do that thing with your tongue again, my dear, I think you’ll find me more than amenable.”

“Is that your way of asking, love?” Crowley vanishes the rest of their clothing. 

“Well…” Aziraphale preens at the feathers he’d ruffled with all his earlier touching. 

“Roll over, then.” Crowley pats his hip. He obliges, sighing when Crowley begins with a soft kiss to the back of his neck, and hands in his own wings. The kisses are slow and meandering, little embers of desire to be stoked. Crowley doesn’t do a complete deep preening, but he makes sure to take a bit of care at the connecting joints, just as he’s kissing a line down between them. “Do you remember Mueang Thai?”

“Siam then, wasn’t it?”

“Mueang Thai, I’m sure of it.” Crowley says, and Aziraphale just shrugs slightly beneath his ministrations. “Don’t remember the name of the town, but I remember… oh, I remember your wings.”

“I remember the things you did to them.”

“Mm. I remember the river, wasn’t it a river we were by? Maybe there was a lake. Well we went out on a boat once, I know.”

“That darling little house on stilts. Oh, and the _food_ …”

“We’ll go again. When the world doesn’t end. Doubt the house will be there, but I’ll buy you all the food you like. And we’ll get a big hotel room… spread our wings out again.” His tongue traces a line up between Aziraphale’s shoulderblades. “Do those things.”

“You made an awful mess of me.”

Crowley just chuckles, that warm, dark, wicked chuckle that always sends Aziraphale’s insides twisting in anticipation. He remembers it well, he remembers so much so well… Yes, Crowley had made an awful mess, but he’d cleaned him back up so attentively. They’ve been finding opportunities to preen each other’s wings from just about the start, but he doesn’t think he’d ever been so thoroughly groomed as that lazy afternoon in their little stilt house. Long hours of Crowley just combing through his feathers, neatening each one, cleaning him of any mess and then evening out all the barbs… Each and every feather! It was torturous in its intimacy, the feeling of it all, but he’d loved every moment. He remembers tickling each other with semiplumes ready to shed, that they’d helped ease out, teasing. How Crowley would press a kiss to a dropped feather, because it had once been a part of Aziraphale-- and how he would bite down on one in that playful way, and even without touching Aziraphale, it would send shivers through him just to imagine… 

Now, here in Crowley’s flat, safe and private and with plenty of space for wings to spread out, Aziraphale could melt under the kisses and the little moments of preening, if it weren’t for the further promise of what Crowley’s tongue will do. He takes his time traveling down Aziraphale’s spine, before firmly parting his buttocks, kneading a little. Teasing at Aziraphale’s skin with his tongue and letting him feel, when that tongue changes. The splitting forked end, the lengthening of it into something inhuman, and inhumanly deft. 

“Oh, but aren’t you _deliciousss_?” Crowley hisses-- the hiss is always more pronounced when he lets his tongue be its natural self, and Aziraphale sighs happily. He finds a sweetness in the sound, in every little inhuman aspect of his husband. He can’t imagine feeling this, with any other being… the relaxation that takes him when Crowley’s hands are on him.

Crowley’s tongue circles his hole, the forked ends tickling at sensitive skin, and as he relaxes, Crowley pushes in past the ring of muscle, sliding in and out just a little bit on each stroke. He teases until Aziraphale whines for more, and then he withdraws entirely, giving Aziraphale’s backside a single smack-- not a hard one, but the sound rings out sharp just the same.

“Oh, be nice.” Aziraphale tuts. “Crowley, be _good_ to me. You’re an _awful_ tease.”

“I’m an awful tease?” He grins, nuzzling at the spot he’d smacked. “What about _you_ , angel?”

“I never tease.”

“Mm, mm-hm, and what do you call the way you eat fondue? What do you call the noises you make over dessert? You tease me all the time. Besssides… demon. I’m not meant to be good.”

He nips at Aziraphale to make his point, before spreading him wide again, licking over his hole. Teasing, yes… but he gives in before Aziraphale can really protest the teasing. He pushes in deep this time, tongue undulating just the way Aziraphale is weak for, before he really starts working his prostate. 

He’d been embarrassed, once upon a time, when he’d lost control of himself and the demon in him had come through a bit more, his tongue growing too long for his mouth and splitting off at the end into two little tips, capable of wiggling independently. He’d feared Aziraphale would find it repulsive, as if he would suddenly remember that Crowley was a demon-- as if he had ever forgotten it, as if it mattered. Or maybe just that he would find it physically repellant, they had been in a rather heated clinch at the time. Aziraphale had nearly asked him what else that tongue could do right on the spot. It was perhaps fifty years or so of courtship before he learned the full extent of it, but every little discovery along the way had delighted him. 

There are many things they’ve done, and many things they do, which he thoroughly enjoys. Being at the mercy of Crowley’s tongue is his favorite. 

Lucky for him, it’s one of Crowley’s favorites, too. Right up there with the space between his thighs, the warmth and softness of them. The way Aziraphale frequently indulges him that way when he doesn’t feel the urge for his own release, treating him to gentle touches and soft kisses, sweet words. They each have ways of indulging the other, not just when it comes to providing pleasure, but to be able to give a feeling of safety, however temporary. Security. 

Crowley’s flat always feels more like a very expensive hotel suite than like a home, but it always feels safe when Aziraphale finds himself spread out before the fireplace, wings and all. High above the street, with all Crowley’s fancy security measures in place and no one to encroach upon them, the blinds drawn to allow them their full freedom… And it does make giving into pleasure easier, to feel so safe. It’s as if they’re in a world of their own, far from their usual day-to-day worries. Everything is the warmth of the fire, the soft throw beneath him, the many cushions, the detritus of a romantic meal strewn around them, his wings still tingling from Crowley’s attentions… and Crowley’s tongue hard at work, driving him to higher heights. Tightening the scope of the world down to his touch until Aziraphale is keening, gripping a pillow and rocking his hips back, until his world is awash in pleasure. 

Crowley has miracled away the mess by the time he comes out of the haze of it, is pressed close to him, arms around him and wings tented over him.

“Come here…” He urges, pushing himself up, Crowley moving with him easily. They rearrange themselves to sit in a tangle of limbs, so that Aziraphale can get a wing around Crowley while Crowley keeps a wing around him. “There, that’s better… give me just a moment, love, and then you can have me any way you want me.”

“Already have.” Crowley insists, laying his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder, and guiding Aziraphale’s down to his. “My tasssty angel… But maybe later, if you like.”

“We’ll both have so much work to get on with soon. We ought to make tonight last-- and fill it with lovely things.”

Crowley’s chuckle is warm where it reverberates against his throat. He gives him a gentle nip there, and tousles his hair. “Bubble bath? And then we’ll get these lovely wings back out so I can give them a proper preening. And then… oh, and then, and then, and then.”

“I like the sound of that.”

They stay as they are a little longer, cocooned in warm feathers, before they help each other rise, wings folding away into nothingness. They have all night-- Crowley may like sleep, but he doesn’t need it. He winds up getting a light doze in just the same, in his enormous tub, draped over Aziraphale with the bubbles coming up around them like sweet-scented clouds. It’s quiet and peaceful, in Crowley’s bath. The whole room is white marble and gleaming brass, and his most humidity-loving plants crowding the shelves around the tub. The soft sounds echo, when Aziraphale lifts a hand from the bath, water cascading back down, before he trails fingertips over Crowley’s shoulder. 

Crowley lifts his head, blinking away sleep and smiling at him, and they trade a few lazy kisses as the bubbles die down. Finally, they drain the tub and rinse off, before patting each other dry with impossibly fluffy towels-- Aziraphale’s a snowy white, Crowley’s a perfect inky black.

“Wings out.” Crowley says, moving to his vanity. There are two tufted stools, and Aziraphale sits with his back to Crowley first, watches him go over his things with a careful eye, picking up the comb, and a bottle of rose-scented oil from the little line-up of crystal bottles. The little box of powder with its soft puff.

‘Comb’ isn’t quite the right word, perhaps, but there’s not really a better one. A preening tool meant for feathers, not quite as intimate as a bare hand but far more efficient for some tasks. It shines like gold, though it isn’t-- it isn’t truly any material, exactly. Crowley had crafted it, the very first time he’d insisted upon fixing ‘the absolute state of you’, as he’d put it, before they were courting. They were already comfortable enough around each other for Aziraphale to accept the offer of a good preen, given it wouldn’t involve real intimate contact, then. He’d left it in Aziraphale’s possession at the time, and it had passed back and forth between them. Now, Crowley’s bath has the room for full preening sessions, and no room in Aziraphale’s does.

Crowley annoints the comb with perfumed oil and sets to work, taking care not to miss a spot as he sets every ruffled feather right, as he searches for any damages or loose feathers in need of coaxing. Aziraphale could direct him to spots that itch or feel off, but nothing is so pressing that it isn’t far more pleasant to let Crowley be methodical and thorough. Every so often he re-oils the comb, or stops to lightly powder an already-preened spot. He has an array of perfumed oils, but he tends to favor rose, for Aziraphale-- he likes the way it melds with Aziraphale’s own natural scent, how a certain sweetness comes more forward.

When he finishes, Aziraphale turns, so that Crowley can groom through the underside of each wing, a slightly more difficult affair-- especially because after all the millennia, Aziraphale still squirms and fights a giggle whenever Crowley is getting at his under-wing. 

Crowley wipes the comb down with a soft cloth when he’s satisfied with the job he’s done, handing it over.

“There.” He smiles. “My dove’s neat and tidy as a prize show-pigeon. And weatherproof.”

“If only I ever had them out in the weather.” Aziraphale chuckles, looking over Crowley’s various perfumes. “Lavender, for you, I think. For tonight.”

Even though once they fold their wings away, the scent will go with them, he likes the idea of Crowley being able to carry a little calm with him. He gets so tense… and Aziraphale understands the tension all too well. He supposes they both do. For tonight, at least, and for a while, whenever Crowley brings his wings out here in his flat, he’ll have a little hint of something relaxing with him. Relaxing, and floral, but still rather masculine-- at least, Aziraphale still thinks so. And if Aziraphale brings out something sweet in roses, Crowley brings out something spicy in lavender. It’s one that works well with his own charmingly demonic aroma. 

Crowley bears having his underwings preened better than Aziraphale does, and turns on his own stool, and lets out a gratifyingly pleased sound when Aziraphale starts in on the back, there at the shoulder. 

“Oh, dig in there, angel…” He rolls his neck, and groans again when Aziraphale complies. Crowley’s wings are already so neat and glossy, it hardly seems there’s much work to do, but Aziraphale loves doing it, and here or there he finds something that needs his touch. 

“You’re so lovely, dear.” Aziraphale leans forward, to kiss his back, there between them. “We haven’t flown together in too long. I miss seeing these in action.”

“Action, hm?” Crowley makes a show of spreading one-- his bathroom is spacious, but he can really only spread one wing at a time to its full span. Still, that little show is enough to have Aziraphale sighing and nuzzling at the back of his neck. “We’ll take a weekend, soon. The countryside. There’s no room in London.”

That was the trouble, really, room. They could choose to be invisible if they liked, but the buildings are tall, the parks have kite-flyers and model aeroplane enthusiasts, if you go up high enough there’s air traffic… and if you don’t, you fight for space against city birds, or ding off aerials. But a weekend in the country… even just a day. A picnic, a flight… Out where it’s easy to give the birds some space, out where it’s green. He knows they have a lot of work to oversee now, but they can take a little time for that.

“Do you think that bed and breakfast is still there?”

“From thirty years ago?” Crowley cranes his neck to look back over his shoulder. “Doubt it, they were barely straggling along when we went there. The proprietor looked nearly as ancient as we are.”

“They made it through the last war, things can only have gotten better since. Though I imagine it has passed on to younger hands...”

“I’ll look it up. Aziraphale… if the same one’s not there, we’ll try a new place. But we can fly over the same valley.”

“Where we had that picnic…” He sighs, and rests his cheek against Crowley’s back, continuing to make steady work of preening him. “I remember it like it was yesterday. It practically was. We flew over that flock of sheep, with the new lambs… In the evening, you took me to the picture show, in the village nearby. We had the southward-facing room, the bedspread was green with little flowers, I remember…”

“I remember you said it was like a little field. We had our own fireplace. You had to go down the hall for a bath, but then, we didn’t need it anyway… Suppose they’ve changed the wallpaper by now?”

“Oh, they must have, the new owners would have. I hope they didn’t change it to anything too modern, though.”

“I’ll look it up.” Crowley repeats, and Aziraphale kisses his neck. “In a couple of weeks, when our agents have a routine down, we can go. Until then we’ll need to be ready for calls… I’ll still come home nights-- most nights at least. Mine can handle things. I can get any messages in the morning.”

“Mm. Yes, mine will be in place tomorrow, I’ll have to be able to take calls… but that’s fine. If you’re sure you can be home most nights, it doesn’t matter if I’m tethered to the telephone.”

“I could get you an ansaphone, you know. Set it up for you and everything.”

“Oh, no, it’s too much trouble.”

“You use a computer, you could use an ansaphone.” Crowley snorts. His own computer is sleek and sexy and entirely for show, but Aziraphale does all sorts of things on his. Inventory and taxes and… well, mostly those two things. Entirely those two things. Crowley has played solitaire on Aziraphale’s computer, while Aziraphale did work around the shop, and never bothered to learn to do anything else, but he’d picked up advancements with telephones and cars and such. 

And the telephone in his car.

Well, they balance each other out in which human inventions they keep on top of, as well as in other things.

Aziraphale finishes preening Crowley’s wings, wiping the comb down again and setting it back in its place on the vanity, and then he takes Crowley’s hand to lead him to bed.


	2. I'll Always Do What's Best For You

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s advice, in the following days-- when people come into the shop, he urges them to live their best lives. He does so without bringing up the end of the world, even as a vague hypothetical, but he does his best to push the idea, within reason. When he’s not encouraging customers, he’s encouraging the people at his usual pub, or the waitstaff at this or that little place, and when he’s not doing that, he’s fielding calls from his agent on the antichrist, and when he isn’t doing any of that, he’s with Crowley.

They have work meetings, harried sometimes and relaxed other times, away from home. Away from any place that they could call home. Even at their best, there’s a tension, when they have to talk about agents, about sides, about what-ifs.

“I do wish we could have…” Aziraphale begins, as Crowley drops into the seat beside him, their usual park bench for work meetings, down a ways from their usual spot for merely enjoying themselves. 

“What? Swapped the babies back, let them raise their real kid with Hell watching on, take the antichrist and run? Do it ourselves?”

“Sometimes. Don’t you?”

“No. No, Aziraphale, you know what it would be like… We’d never be safe. Not once Hell found out. They’d track me down, and then they… It might not even take eleven years, they ignore us enough now but you know well as I do if a demon and an angel started raising a child together…”

“Neither side would like that very much.” Aziraphale finishes, mouth a tight line. Not a new discussion, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish things were different.

“Besides, you know the worst of it.” Crowley doesn’t look his way, gaze fixed on the duck pond. “If the plan doesn’t work… we wouldn’t be able to kill him.”

Aziraphale gasps, and Crowley’s hand covers his, on the bench between them.

“Surely we won’t have--”

“I thought you knew it was always going to be the last resort. Aziraphale…”

“He’ll still be a child, Crowley.”

“I know. And it’s him, weighed against every other child on earth, and every child yet to be born, and every adult and every animal and everything, everything… and you and I. Against everything.”

“I don’t think I could.” He whispers. “Not an innocent child.”

“If he’s innocent, there won’t be any need to.” Crowley’s hand squeezes, reassuring. “And you won’t have to. You’ll never have to.”

“Crowley--”

“No. It’ll be my mess, if our plan fails, and I’ll take care of it.”

“Your messes _are_ my messes, my dear.” Aziraphale says, and spends a little miracle to ensure they’ll go unnoticed, if he lays his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “It’s what we swore to each other.”

“Well you won’t have to take care of this one, if it goes so wrong.”

“Crowley…” He takes his arm, pressing closer. “They’ll destroy you. If it all goes wrong and you-- Hell won’t stop. They won’t ever stop.”

“I’d be lucky to get off so lightly, if they found out I’d done it. I’ll just have to make sure they don’t know.” He turns, kissing Aziraphale’s temple. “Anyway, that’s what the holy water’s for. If they do come for me, I’ll have a fighting chance.”

“Or you could destroy yourself.”

“It’ll be kinder if it happens than anything they’ll do to me in Hell… Oh-- oh, come on, angel…” He wipes at Aziraphale’s cheek. “Hey now, none of that. You know I-- you know how careful I am. You know how important it is to me, to come home to you… so long as I won’t be bringing trouble too close after me.”

“Bring your trouble. Hell I can face, if it’s for you.”

Crowley hums, the two of them twisting slightly on the bench so that he can wrap his arms around Aziraphale. And Aziraphale knows… he knows Crowley doesn’t quite believe it. Or-- no, not that Crowley doesn’t believe he would, but that Crowley fears it would be too much for him to handle. That he could be hurt himself, or that Crowley could lose him. He knows Crowley trusts him, but he knows Crowley doesn’t trust Hell.

Which he has to admit is fair. It’s not as if he could take them all on, he’s not a fighter, no matter how hard he would try with Crowley on the line. He’d been trained for war, once… they’d found him lacking. Mercy was always Aziraphale’s problem. Before the Fall, of course, it hadn’t much mattered whether or not he could fight, he hadn’t imagined he would ever use the sword he was first assigned.

He had been a front-line medic, instead, bearing wounded away from the heat of battle to be ministered to where possible. Willing to place himself in the line of danger for his fellows, willing to shield a fallen friend with his body if he thought they could yet be saved, willing to give of himself utterly… but not willing to kill. That was then. Now? He doubts he’d ever be easy with the idea, but he knows that he could, if he was defending someone or something he loved enough. Crowley, or the earth. But that’s against an enemy, not a child who knows no different, who was born to be a weapon whether he likes it or not. 

“Let’s go, angel.” Crowley says at last. “I think we’ve covered today’s business.”

They walk along the path a while, both trying to enjoy an afternoon of honest sunshine. They’ll only have so many, before fall comes. They’ll only have so many summers, before they know once and for all how their plan fared… All the better reason to enjoy those days, to push aside the thoughts of what the future holds and to appreciate the sun. All the better reason to take their holiday at the bed and breakfast where they’d stolen a beautiful few days during a time of war. All the better reason for Crowley to jostle his arm and catch his eye with a smile, and lead him into temptation with a lunch at the Ritz.

The bed and breakfast is gone, Crowley tells him towards the end of the week, his expression sorrow-lined as he kneels beside Aziraphale’s chair, leaning into the comfort of his lap in hopes of having his hair played with.

It’s a sort of mutual comfort, Aziraphale thinks, sliding fingers into the dark silk of it, watching the strands part easily for him, winding them around his fingers. Soft, cool… he could stroke through Crowley’s hair all evening, he thinks, and Crowley would melt, head pillowed on the thighs he loves so much…

“Well… we can go for just a picnic and a stretch of the wings, we don’t need to stay the weekend, or even a night, the way you drive. We could be home by supper if we liked. Though I think it might be nice to find a little country pub while we’re there.”

“We could still stay a weekend, angel. It just won’t be the same room. Same place. There are other bed and breakfasts, inns… little… little vacation cottages for let, even, depending on where you want to go. We could make memories in a new place.”

“I don’t want to make memories in a new place.” Aziraphale’s hand stills, though it stays right where it is in Crowley’s hair. His voice wobbles slightly. “Not now. I want to go to all the same places. Familiar places. We might not have _time_ for new places, Crowley. I don’t want to make new memories in a place we can’t go back to, I want-- I want to see the important places while we still have time. If it all goes wrong, I--”

“Hush, dove, hush…” Crowley nuzzles into his lap, and then pushes himself up further into said lap to nuzzle at his belly, arms coming up to wrap around him. “We’ll picnic just where you remember. We can fly over where the bed and breakfast was, yeah? The view will still be there. If it goes wrong… you can take me to beg amnesty. Either we’ll wind up on the same side… or we’ll be destroyed together. Your hand in mine. We won’t even have to see it happen, it’ll be fast. Not a moment apart.”

“I wish it wasn’t such a comfort to me, to think it could happen that way.” He laughs, weak and wet. “Just a single flash and… and we’ll have had nearly six thousand years of never being truly parted. That’s better than most.”

“We’ll have an eternity of never being parted. We just won’t be around for the rest of it. But it’s better than most, yeah.”

“I like that. An eternity. Whatever we were will be intermingled, when it’s over, I imagine… whether it’s dust or goo or light, whatever we are now, if we’re destroyed together, and whatever we become… Oh, this is terribly morbid. But we won’t be parted. We won’t be. But we’ll never be alone.”

“I’ll handle the picnic, Saturday. The blanket’s in the boot of my car waiting, and I’ll get us a new hamper. The old one’s seen better days.”

“It probably ought to be in a museum.” Aziraphale’s laugh is a little easier, now. “Think about that, instead. A little museum of daily life. We could stock the whole thing. Old clothes I used to wear, old dishes we used to eat off of, the pocketknife you once carried. Handkerchiefs I tried to embroider and always did badly. A moth-eaten rug, a chair. That old hamper, and--”

Emotion overcomes him again-- it always does, now… since Crowley came home so haunted and told him there was an expiration date on their happiness, he finds it so easy to be frightened or teary, when he used to be so placid about so many things. A soft touch, certainly, and nervous about a few things, but he had a certain serenity which bore him through. Now it almost feels lost to him, except for the nights…

In the nights when Crowley burrows into him and shakes with silent tears, Aziraphale finds the fear and sadness lift from his shoulders and allow him to care for Crowley. It’s only fair, it’s as Crowley does for him whenever he is overcome. He finds soothing things to say, and wraps him up tight until the moment passes. If he cannot wrap him in his wings, he wraps him in his arms, he wraps him in blankets and dressing gowns and borrowed cardigans. He wraps him in his love.

“Your place is a museum.” Crowley teases gently, moving to drape himself over Aziraphale more fully, his weight pleasant and soothing as always, his hands stroking an arm, tangling in curls. “Old books, all those silver snuff-boxes, little things no one alive knows how to use anymore that you keep in desk drawers and cabinets. Your favorite shoes. Your autograph book.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten that.” He turns his face towards Crowley and lets a smile be kissed back to his lips. “From the opera… I suppose it would be worth a mint now, if I dug it out and could bear to part with it. But I like my memories… and I don’t know what I’d do with the money.”

“We saw all the greats together, didn’t we?” Crowley grins, nuzzling along his cheek towards his ear. “I still have all your ticket stubs, in a box, where I keep my precious things. Next weekend we’ll go and see some music-- the symphony. And there’ll be operas. And the ballet, and the theatre. Eleven years, love… even if worst comes to worst, we can see a lot of shows in eleven years.” 

Crowley takes his hand, pressing a fervent kiss across the knuckles, and Aziraphale leans in to kiss his jaw. 

“It has been a while.” He allows, as the two of them curl into each other a little less desperately and a little more comfortably. 

“Saturday in the countryside and Sunday matinee at the theatre, and then the symphony next weekend. I like you in a nice suit, you almost never do. You would for the symphony.”

“I always do. And you… so handsome. Your hair sleek, and a flower in your buttonhole, and your shoes shined. Oh, it was always so… to be out on your arm, I felt as if the world lay before me all lovely and glittering, and we would have it all together. I miss being free to take your arm.”

“You’ll take it anyway, at the symphony. I won’t let anyone notice.” Crowley pulls back to kiss him properly, and slowly. “I’ll take care of everything. All you have to take care of… is me, tonight. Come and give your demon a bath and put him to bed. And I’ll see everything else goes right.”

“Well… yes, all right. Can’t argue with that.” Aziraphale smiles. He feels pleasantly like putty in Crowley’s hands, when he hears that tempting purr, and a bath sounds very nice. As does being taken on a picnic for which he needn’t lift a finger. Crowley always arranges a nice hamper-- and always brings champagne, ever since its first invention. Aziraphale always winds up with his sandwiches a bit of a mess… though Crowley never complains. He always licks a bit of egg from the side of Aziraphale’s thumb and kisses his disappointed pout at seeing them squashed or coming apart, and says that’s how he knows Aziraphale made them by hand instead of using a miracle or a delicatessen. 

Crowley might pick up sandwiches from a deli counter-- he knows which Aziraphale’s favorites are. But he might simply pick out some fruits and cheeses and spreads, and a loaf of bread or some crackers… He will certainly bring along sweets. It used to be honeycomb with the fruit, or it was tartlets, or it was little pastries and confections. It always depended on where they were, before they settled in London, what sorts he’d find. A dry sausage sometimes, or little preserved fish, or boiled eggs… 

He looks forward to it immensely, even without the promise of the bed and breakfast. When the weekend arrives at last and he no longer needs to worry about calls from his agent at the Dowling house, he lets Crowley escort him to the waiting Bentley and help him in. The drive itself is as terrifying as it always is, but ultimately he trusts Crowley, and they make very good time…

Their old picnic spot hasn’t much changed. They walk over an unspoiled field, sheep dotting the hills around them. Crowley’s hand there for his every step of the way to support him over uneven ground, as ever… and as ever, Aziraphale keeps hold of it not because he truly needs it, but because they both like to remain in contact. Their tree is still there, Crowley spreads the old tartan blanket out beneath it, Aziraphale settles down and looks to where the old trunk still bears their initials. 

“I tried to find a new hamper most like the old one.” Crowley says, opening it. “Afraid it’s not exact, but… I think you’ll find enough that’s familiar.”

The champagne, of course-- he’d expected that. The rest of the spread he recognizes as Crowley lays it out-- the same as when they’d last come here. The sandwiches-- some egg, some cucumber-- the bunch of grapes, the bread and honey, the chocolate… It had just been a bit of everything, but it had felt like bliss, sharing it as they had.

“Sentimental old serpent.” He cups Crowley’s cheek, smiling. “Feed your angel a nibble?”

“As if I could resist.” Crowley says, his voice a low rumble around the soft hiss. It’s Aziraphale’s favorite sound-- the way he sounds when they’re far from humans, when he himself no longer needs to sound human. It’s not just the serpentine hiss he stops trying to suppress, it’s the depth of it, beyond a warm baritone and into an infernal bass. It’s the way temptation is woven into every syllable, which has nothing to do with whether or not Crowley means to tempt and everything to do with his very nature. 

They lean in towards each other, Crowley bringing one of the sandwiches up to Aziraphale’s lips. His smile is so doting, so adoring, so familiar… and the sunlight that comes through the branches dapples him so attractively. It brings out the hints of color in his dark hair. 

“Do you remember the last time?” Aziraphale asks, between bites-- though of course he knows Crowley does. The menu proves it. “The way you held me…”

“You needed holding.” Crowley’s thumb swipes at the corner of his lips. “We’d had a time of it, the few years before… you were working all the time. I remember the way you smiled at me, when I offered you a weekend away. You didn’t think you could, but I said you could work anywhere…”

“And then you didn’t let me.”

“You always work so hard, in hard times. Need the holidays.” He says, politely leaving out the part where Aziraphale doesn’t much work at all when times are less so. Oh, he performs his miracles, and occasional temptations, he makes trips to places and people in turmoil, he makes his quota, but when it isn’t the whole world falling apart, he doesn’t much go above and beyond. And now, now that the whole world could fall apart, Crowley’s going to be there to make sure he doesn’t burn himself out along the way.

And, of course, he shall return the favor. Crowley’s always worked, too, when things have been bad-- put in work for Aziraphale’s side, if he could claim to have influenced the evil humans came up with themselves. 

He feeds Crowley a bite from one of the cucumber sandwiches, only for Crowley to take it from him and feed him the rest-- so it goes for most of their picnic, with Crowley taking more pleasure in seeing Aziraphale fed than he ever could from food, but he gives in when they come to the grapes, leaning back and letting Aziraphale feed him a full half of the bunch. If Aziraphale dangles the bunch overhead, he’ll snag one with his tongue, if Aziraphale plucks one from its stem to pop between his lips, he’ll nip after his fingertips. It’s one of the few things he takes real joy in being fed. He enjoys the honey, though he doesn’t care as much for the bread as Aziraphale does, doesn’t need a feeling of fullness. 

When they finally reach the chocolate, Crowley refuses more than the barest nibble. 

“It’s your favorite.” He murmurs, sliding one neat little square past Aziraphale’s lips.

“Mm-- oh, but you should have a taste! You bought two, after all, one for each.”

“I bought two for you. Like the last time.” He admits. Aziraphale remembers well, how Crowley had insisted he eat both, how he’d stroked his face as the chocolate had melted on his tongue, how his fingertips had lightly slid along Aziraphale’s throat, danced around his collar and then over his chest, down to his belly. Chaste and playful and gentle with him, encouraging his indulgence. “Well… a little taste.”

He holds it between his lips when Aziraphale places it there, taking a nibble from one side and then leaning in to offer it back, grabbing Aziraphale’s hand away from reaching for it.

“Oh, all right.” He rolls his eyes, but he leans in to take it with his own lips just the same. It’s so easy to forget the weight of the world when Crowley is like this, charming and playful, sweet and indulging. 

They spread themselves out beneath the tree, once the last of the picnic has been devoured, reminiscing and trading touches, before Crowley sits up and shrugs out of his jacket, rolling his shoulders. 

“Shall we?”

He offers his hand, and then takes Aziraphale’s coat, folding it carefully and laying it on the blanket with his own. A little miracle to ensure they go unseen and their picnic spot goes undisturbed-- not that anything is likely to come along and disturb it-- and then he unfolds his wings. Sleek, black, and beautiful-- the sight of them always makes something quicken in Aziraphale, whether he’s eager for a preening session or to be wrapped up in their embrace, or just eager to see them at work. 

Crowley’s wingspan is impressive, though Aziraphale’s is just a little longer, and the shape of them is sharp, like a falcon. Built for fearsome speeds, appropriately enough. The shape of Aziraphale’s wings is softer, but they’re just as strong, and it feels good bringing them out here in the outdoors, testing them in the open air. 

They take off together, facing each other as they build height, keeping pace. Once they’re up high enough they break away, Aziraphale soaring in lazy circles over the valley as Crowley zips back and forth, climbing and diving and rolling. Showing off, as he always does when given the chance, but then… it works. 

They fly over the grazing sheep, the miracle serving to leave those sheep undisturbed by it-- at least, until Crowley makes a low enough swoop to touch the back of one, startling it. Aziraphale hurries to soothe the flock before one startled sheep can turn into several panicked ones, but he knows the mischief wasn’t in malice. There’s a joy in flying like this that they haven’t tasted in too long. They were made to use their wings, and now, the only agents stationed on an earth so populated, where humans have even taken the skies, they’re stifled, and they’re the only two who understand the feeling. 

He could stay in the air all day, soaring on updrafts, just lazy… and he could spend all day watching Crowley’s showboating. But they have plans for the evening, and they’ll be spending the night back in London, and so he lets himself drop down bit by bit, circling closer and closer to the tree. Crowley comes in for a landing when he does, taking his hand for a kiss. 

“You were magnificent.” Aziraphale sighs, running a hand over one wing. Slender and powerful… cool to the touch now, though being wrapped in them is always warm. 

“You were grace itself.” Crowley reaches up to neaten a few of Aziraphale’s feathers in return. “But then, you always are…”

After a little bit of stroking and preening, they fold their wings away, gather up their outerwear, hamper, and blanket, and return hand in hand up to the waiting Bentley

“I don’t want it all to end.” Aziraphale says, looking back a moment as Crowley opens his door for him. “Oh, Crowley… we can’t let it.”

“We won’t.” Crowley kisses his neck. “Not if you’re with me. Come on, love. I’ve precious little faith for anything, but I’ve faith in you. You won’t let the world down, and I won’t let you down. Now let’s go… I’ve got the place all picked out for supper, but if we get a move on, there’s a little used bookshop.”

That’s all Aziraphale needs to hear.

And so it goes, once the pattern is established. During the week, they try to spend nights together, but as crucial development stages loom, Crowley spends more nights by his own phone anticipating updates from his agent. They remain on call, give instructions, and trade information when they meet. On weekends, they go out. Restaurants, shows, museums… they dedicate time to each other to reminisce, to touch, to dote. When Aziraphale feels an overwhelming tide of emotions, Crowley wraps him in a blanket and makes cocoa. When Crowley frets that the boy is too normal, Aziraphale draws him a hot bath the next Saturday, and pulls up a stool beside the tub so that he can comb his hair. They remind each other to hope for the best. They prepare themselves for the worst.

Like that, eleven years pass in a blur. Worry, fear, love, fierce love… they weather it and it flies by as any other span of eleven years might. 

Crowley had said they should be there, on the boy’s birthday, and Aziraphale had arranged it, with only a little teasing about how perhaps Crowley might like to be his lovely assistant. He’d known better than to plan on it-- he’d arranged Crowley a place with the catering company, they wouldn’t notice him. 

“Whatever happens next…” Crowley says, the two of them taking one last moment in the Bentley before facing the birthday party, and what may be the end of the world. “Both our sides are going to be in touch. If he accepts the hellhound and decides to end it all… then we have our plan in place. If he sends it away, my side’s going to have a lot to say… and yours may contact you about the hellhound’s appearance on earth.”

“I suppose they may, yes. They don’t interfere much nowadays, but that would get their attention.”

“If everything goes right, we’ll have to be apart until the coast is clear.”

“Crowley--”

“It’s why I have my insurance policy, Aziraphale, you know-- you’ve always known. If they blame me, they’ll come, but I’ll be all right. As long as they don’t find out about us, it’ll blow over. There’ll be enough blame to go around, and I’ll be able to get out of it. And your side… well, you’ll be able to tell them you saw to it the hound was dispatched with no harm done. You’ll set a signal for me when it’s safe to come home, and I’ll come home to you when I’m sure I won’t be followed.”

“I should protect you. I can fight demons-- you wouldn’t even have to be in the same room as the holy water.”

Crowley leans over, kissing him softly. “No, love, no… if they come for me for this and I can fight them off, then it ends. If they come for me and Hell gets word an angel is fighting for me? We’ll never be able to stop running, not for a minute. They’ll tear us apart-- they’ll torture us for eternity. And trust me, angel, neither of us can take that.”

He caresses the side of Aziraphale’s face, his hand shaky, and Aziraphale leans into it, takes his hand and squeezes it tight.

“I worry that you’ll go and never come back to me. That you could just be taken, or destroyed, and I would spend the rest of my days never knowing…” He admits. 

“That’s why this is so important.” Crowley kisses him again, slow. “I love you. Whatever happens, know that I love you. With all of me, I adore you, and everything I do is for you…”

“And I you, my dearest.” Aziraphale produces a handkerchief, and tilts Crowley’s sunglasses up, to dab gently at the corners of his eyes. “I love you with all the love in Creation. And I would do everything for you.”

“All right, all right-- stop the soppy stuff. Let me get your moustache.” He sniffs and waves him away, taking the eyeliner pencil to Aziraphale’s upper lip. 

“How do I look?”

“Embarrassing.” Crowley coos. Aziraphale’s magician costume is the same one he’d put together upon first completing his lessons, ‘hopelessly outdated’ is putting it mildly and kindly. The drawn-on moustache doesn’t exactly help matters, either. But then, Crowley’s always had trouble keeping his fondness hidden, whenever Aziraphale did something he considered embarrassing. He’d trotted along after him to centuries of silly hobbies-- a cooking class, a community theatre, art lessons, magic performances in the park, dances in an upstairs room of his old club… lounged and watched and pretended to be too cool, but never as effectively as he might have.

Aziraphale desperately wants another silly thing. He hasn’t dared think of anything new, the past eleven years. He’s focused on his memories, on everything he’s wanted to hold onto that they’ve done and all the places they’ve been… but if the world doesn’t end, they’ll be free to have new things. He’ll have to figure out what. When they come through it all, when Crowley comes home to him and tells him they’re safe at last, he’ll be able to figure out what else there is to try.

“Break a leg, then.” Crowley says, before slipping out of the Bentley to get Aziraphale’s door. “You keep an eye on the boy, I’ll find the hound.”

“Be safe.”Aziraphale nods. They part, Crowley moving to buzz around the caterers, moving around enough to scout the area without seeming out of place, and Aziraphale moving to get his stage set. 

When it comes to the magic tricks themselves, pride and a certain sort of honor prevent him from using miracles. When it comes to setting up his things, however… well, Heaven’s gotten used to his ‘frivolous’ miracles, and he’d love nothing more than for things to fizzle out so harmlessly that they might lecture him about that and not even pick up the hellhound as a blip on their radar.

The magic show is a disaster anyway, the party moreso-- there’s nothing Crowley can do for him, he has his own task to worry about, but Aziraphale finds himself looking to him anyway, is accustomed to looking to him at the best of times but has always needed to when particularly struggling with the pains of angelic empathy. In this case, the overwhelming tide of panic that had risen from every adult over the whole gun incident-- the parents scattered about mostly shift from frightened to frustrated when the guns prove harmless but the food begins flying, but for the agents whose guns they had once been, the panic only spikes higher as they grapple with the question of how they could have checked their equipment that morning and yet be carrying water pistols come the afternoon. Alongside all that, the fear and panic from the poor animals… He spends another frivolous miracle to send the poor rabbit home, feeling quite sure none of the humans will even notice, amidst the chaos, and he works to block out the strong human emotion. The bird’s panic quiets all on its own before he manages to get the walls in place to be able to ignore what all the people are feeling as they struggle to regain some control over the children.

The only source of emotion-- other than his own-- which Aziraphale does not block out, which he could not block out, is Crowley. Worry, irritation, uncertainty… it might as well be Aziraphale’s own feelings, anyway. He finds him by the Bentley, looking suspiciously free of flung cake and jelly. 

“Well this is a mess.” Crowley greets him, still scanning the area, though at this point one thing is beginning to be uncomfortably clear. 

Two things are uncomfortably clear, actually-- that the hellhound is not on schedule, and that the dove had smothered itself in its panic, poor thing. Aziraphale feels a distant pang of guilt for not having been able to calm it, he’s normally quite good at exerting a calming influence over animals, but his problems had been so much bigger, and he’d never had a bird die in his sleeve before, in all the times he’d done it… Now, lying still in his hand, he can hardly connect it to what it used to be, as a living thing. He can hardly connect anything to anything, he’s lost control of the situation entirely and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. 

“It’s late.” He whispers, and looks to Crowley to make it right, the way he always does. Through all of this, Crowley has been so strong, the stronger of the two. He’s had his turns to seek comfort, to need a bit of a cry on a long, dark night, but he’s kept Aziraphale going these eleven years.

“Comes from sticking it up your sleeve.” Crowley tuts, missing his meaning. He cups his hands around Aziraphale’s, around the little dove, and blows gently, reviving it. It flies off, though Aziraphale can’t now spare a worry for how it will survive in the wild. 

Well… as much as any part of London could be called the wild, but out of captivity, at any rate. Perhaps to birds, the parks are wild enough, or the little bits of public wood which are too cultivated and contained to seem truly wild to Aziraphale. But he can’t spare much thought to that, either. 

“Crowley…”

“Yeah.” He plucks a bit of cake from Aziraphale’s shoulder, bringing it to his lips for him with a sad little smirk. “Yeah, I know.”

“Tell me it came, tell me you intercepted it, that it just… left, because it wasn’t wanted.”

“You’d have sensed it if it did… It’s not coming. You’re a mess.”

With a wave of his hand, of course, Aziraphale isn’t. His suit is as neat as it ever was, before Crowley opens the passenger side door for him. 

“But--”

Crowley shakes his head, just barely, and Aziraphale waits, watches him come around to his own side. 

“I’ll call into the office and see if there’s been a hold-up. We won’t go if it’s still on its way. It’s Hell, things aren’t exactly well-organized… there’s a chance.”

“But…”

“But there was someone else at the hospital. Night I delivered the-- the night when-- But there could have been a mix-up.” He shrugs, taking up his car phone and pressing a button thrice. A ring on the other end, and then a crackle in the air and the smell of sulfur. 

Aziraphale can’t quite make out the drone at the other end, but he doesn’t need to. Crowley’s end of the conversation is enough to tell him what he needs to know.

“So then this was always…”

“The wrong boy.” He nods. For a long moment, he stares forward, and then he turns suddenly and seizes Aziraphale, kissing him. Fervent kisses across his cheek, his mouth, graceless and hungry. His shoulders shake, once, under Aziraphale’s hands. “We’ve lost it, we’ve lost it all. Aziraphale, I--”

“No.” Aziraphale squeezes him tight. “We haven’t. Not yet.”

“We won’t be able to locate him. Not before the hound does, and then--”

“What do you mean won’t be able to?”

“Protections.” He waves a hand. “To keep your lot from being able to find him, it’s… it’s a whole thing, demons can’t either. Hell has relied on knowing where he was placed, following the family, having agents in place on earth to keep track. Only the hellhound can track him, and that… that’ll be drawn right there like a magnet, we can’t get to him before it does and then he’ll be in his power.”

“Yes… but no one’s told him what his power _is_. Have they? So we just have to locate him the human way. I’m sure we can.”

“Are you?” Crowley looks into his eyes, searching. 

“Yes. We haven’t any choice, have we? I… I could fight a hellhound.”

“They’re nasty.”

“Please.” Aziraphale scoffs. “I am no mere angel to cower from a hellhound, I am a Principality. Top of my order. It may not mean much to _you_ , my dear, but I do have my rank still. And I think I can manage.”

“A hellhound can do serious damage to an angel, and rank means nothing to him.”

“An angel can do worse, if he’s a mind to.”

Crowley regards him for a moment, before slumping against his shoulder with a sigh. “All right. You take the hound, and… if it comes to that, I’ll take the boy. But if it all starts, really starts… Aziraphale, I’m-- I…”

“So am I. But… less so, when you’re near me. Whatever happens, I’ll brave it if you’re near me.”

The front of the Bentley is not the easiest place to be in a clinch-- neither is the back, for that matter, though they’ve certainly been in a few pleasant ones there-- but it’s worth the awkward leaning and twisting, to feel as if he can breathe again, to feel the terrible fear lift from Crowley.

“The hospital.” Aziraphale continues. “They’ll have records. My _dear_ serpent, and whatever comes next, I will shield you.”

“My _beloved_ angel, and I you.” He kisses Aziraphale one last time, before straightening up and starting the car, engine purring to life. “I don’t think we can keep Hell open as a safety position. If there’s a war, and Heaven won’t grant asylum… we’re going to be on our own.”

“Well… and that won’t be anything new. Not really. We’ll be all right. Or… we’ll be together.”

The hospital comes as a bit of a surprise-- it doesn’t seem to be a hospital at all. There are an awful lot of cars about for a birthing hospital in the middle of nowhere, many of them large and all of them very shiny. Aziraphale doesn’t think much of any of them, though one does draw Crowley’s admiration. 

They pass between a couple of closely-parked Mercedes, a ding appearing on one’s door in Crowley’s wake.

“Really, dear.” Aziraphale smooths it out, but he doesn’t do anything about the birds who suddenly find themselves re-routed to fly over a convertible with its top down. That one was just asking for it.

“Everything’s _wrong_ , don’t you feel it?” He demands. Everything about him radiates distress, like a lashing serpent. But when Aziraphale searches for whatever’s in the air that might affect him so, what he finds is…

“Love.” He gasps, astonished, and Crowley stares at him. “I feel an immense love here. I don’t know how to explain it, it-- Is that what you mean?”

“Repulsive as that sounds, no, I don’t feel _love_ , I feel--”

Crowley doesn’t get the chance to finish. Something rips through the air and catches Aziraphale in the gut. He reels back with a cry, landing in the bushes. There’s a spreading wetness around the aching sting, mostly he thinks he must be in shock. Can he go into shock? He’s never been discorporated like this before. Oh, he _can’t_ be discorporated now! Would he be granted a new vessel more quickly given the emergency situation? What would Crowley do without him? Could he make it back without a proper vessel? And Crowley, what of Crowley? Had he found cover, was he hurt? They couldn’t lose each other now! They couldn’t be parted now, they might never be able to find each other again, not if the war started with the two of them trapped on opposite sides!   
  


“--ziraphale! Aziraphale!” Crowley’s voice reaches him, and then Crowley’s hands are on him, picking him up.

“Crowley, I’ve been shot!”

“It’s paint, you big silly.” Crowley sniffs, and he gives him a quick, hard hug before getting them both up on their feet.

“Paint!” Aziraphale wails. 

“Unless you bleed blue.”

“Crowley, why would anyone shoot me with paint? Do you have any idea-- oh, and the stain!”

Crowley kisses his cheek. “What stain?”

“Right--” He begins, but when he looks down, there’s no paint to be seen. “Oh-- oh, thank you, dear. But what the dickens is going on around here?”

“I don’t know, but--”

“You’re out of bounds!” A man interrupts, red-faced as he jogs up to them, gun in hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you-- my _car_!” 

Aziraphale turns to see the birds settled along the convertible’s seats. “Well, you shouldn’t have left the top down. Now, I say--”

“Did you shoot us?” Crowley demands. There is something dangerous lurking beneath his tone. 

“Well, you shouldn’t have been out this side of the place.” The man says snippily. 

Crowley grabs the front of his jacket, the very air around him rippling as a transformation beyond monstrous comes over him. “ _DID YOU SHOOT MY HUSBAND_?”

“Dear, please.” Aziraphale touches his shoulder, feeling the solid and real Crowley beneath the illusory part of the transformation. It’s too late for the red-faced man, of course. He goes white as a sheet and faints dead away in Crowley’s grip. “Set him down gently.”

“I will not.” Crowley says, but he’s careful just the same. The illusion is dispelled immediately, but changing his actual face back takes him some time. 

“Your nose, dear.” Aziraphale reminds him. “ Just the two nostrils.”

“I hate doing that.” Crowley says, putting his nose right with a shudder. 

“No one _made_ you. Now shall we find out what is going on here?”

Crowley frowns, taking Aziraphale’s arm. Holding tight to each other, wary of further paintball assault, they head into the manor house.


	3. I Would Move Heaven and Earth

They don’t get the answers they wanted. They don’t get the information they need. All that, Aziraphale thinks he could bear. It’s the sound that Crowley makes that destroys him, when they return to the Bentley. It’s the despair. Even at the worst of times, he’s never heard a sound like that from him. All the horrors they’d seen between the good times, all the stresses work put on them, all the worry of the past eleven years, he’s never heard  _ that _ . 

He doesn’t think Crowley has sounded like that since the day he was cast from Heaven.

They have so little time and so much to do, if there’s to be any hope. It’s all a blur of fear and worry and frantic action. After the incident with the bicyclist, Aziraphale is left with the book, and Crowley…

Crowley had left him at the shop to handle what he could on his end. Crowley had kissed him, hard, as they’d run down their plan together, and told him they had perhaps a day, if they were to manage anything. He’d rather be together, but they each had to call contacts to try and find either the boy or the hound. And… well, little as Aziraphale liked it, Crowley had pointed out that Hell would be coming for him. Once they discovered they had the wrong boy, he’d be on the line for it. 

He would rather be with Crowley, not sitting by the phone, but Crowley was concerned with being caught together, and Aziraphale couldn’t argue with that. And he could search the book for answers from home. If anything could take his mind off of worry for Crowley…

He’d wanted that book. He’d wanted it for a couple of centuries-- he’d been traveling for work when it was published, or he’d have been the only sale. By the time he’d had a line on it, they’d all been destroyed, and as people who’d even heard of the book died out, he’d given up his search for a copy as a pipe dream, and now…

Now it’s in his hand, and it’s  _ real _ . A little work and he thinks he’s got the antichrist pretty well nailed down. What they’re going to do about it, he still doesn’t know… or, he doesn’t want to think about it. But they still have time, it’s early yet, Hell still has the wrong boy, and he and Crowley can… clean things up. No one ever has to know. He’ll need a weapon, for the hound, but that’s the least of his worries. 

The greatest of his worries hits home in startling clarity when he calls Crowley and hears he’s ‘with a friend’. He knows exactly what that means. 

He can’t panic now. Crowley is relying on him. Crowley trusts him. Crowley had asked for his trust, and he had promised… He just has to trust Crowley to protect himself. 

His hands are shaking as he sets up the circle to call Heaven. He kneels before it, chanting the Words, and the shaking worsens the longer he waits. Finally, light fills the room, and there’s a too-polite cough.

“Yes?” The Metatron’s voice booms through the shop.

It all pours out of him then, the boy, the war, the fate of the world,  _ Crowley _ .

“You see, he’s-- he’s been helping me. He’s been working to foil Hell’s plans, and I-- I’ve got to go and get him and then… we could stop the war. It doesn’t have to happen”

“Heaven doesn’t want to stop the war, Aziraphale. Heaven wants to destroy Hell’s forces for good.”

“Amnesty, then. For my-- for my  _ husband _ .” He presses, but the Metatron isn’t listening. The line is open, but there’s no one on the other side. 

He’s used to Heaven being brusque, sometimes. Cutting off communications once they’ve said their piece. And yet this stings. He can’t wait about now, he has the information he and Crowley need, and they’re on their own… if they fail, he’ll beg amnesty in person if he has to, but he can’t give into despair now. He has to get to Crowley. They can still end this. 

He can’t think of anything  _ but _ Crowley now. His wings come out, knocking into shelves as he gathers up his notes, the book, dropping half of what he’s trying to carry with him. Crowley, trying to keep control of the situation back at his flat, using his wits, but for how long? He had let himself get so hopeful for a future they may yet be robbed of… but if it’s to end, it can’t end like this, separated across town. He runs up the stairs, all the way to the roof, taking off, willing the city below not to notice him as he swoops between buildings. 

It’s tiring work to fly like this-- he wishes he had Crowley’s speed. He’s pushing himself as hard as he’s able, but he was never a fast flyer, he’s not built for tight spaces. He’s always excelled at long distances. Crossing oceans on just a few strong wingbeats and a favorable wind, that was Aziraphale’s strongest suit. Weaving between office blocks and hopping over shops and houses leaves his wings aching by the time he lands with a thud on Crowley’s terrace. 

The bedroom door slides open before he can touch it. The room is as he last saw it, the plants here and there, the rumpled bed. The door to the bath ajar.

“Crowley?” He calls. No answer. “Crowley!”

He moves down the hall, dread filling him. No sign of a struggle in the living room or the kitchen, but the front door is off its hinges. There’s an acrid smell, something most definitely hellish in nature. Aziraphale’s heart pounds as he turns the corner towards the office. And there, there on the floor… 

The puddle is still smoking. Black goo, unmistakable. A demon met with holy water… 

“Crowley…” He falls to his knees. How had it happened? A miscalculation, something set up to take out his enemies which had rebounded on him? And now… and now, in all the universe, is there no Crowley but this? Nothing of him left? How can Aziraphale live, if Crowley is gone? How is it that he still exists?

They had had a plan. They were going to ask for asylum together, if they couldn’t stop the war. They were going to be together, as they had been from the start…

He can still remember the very first time Crowley had come to him as a man and not a snake. He can still remember the first time Crowley touched his face. How startled he had been, at such gentleness from a demon. How beautiful he found his eyes… The moment he realized that he could love him, could want him for a lover. 

He can still remember the very first time he fell asleep-- he never took to it often, but once… once, in Crowley’s arms, with the world so still… He had been listening to the inhuman thud of Crowley’s heartbeat, and then all of a sudden it was morning, the two of them plastered to each other.

He can still remember so much.

And now, he has nothing left to lose. 

He will not be of Heaven. He will not be of Hell. He will stop this war alone to spite them if he has to, but Crowley has given his life for this world and Aziraphale will not let it be in vain. He will finish out this mad mission, or he will be destroyed trying, and it will only matter in that he ought to have been destroyed at Crowley’s side. It didn’t make a lick of difference to either of them, did it? Crowley wasn’t any safer without Aziraphale there, Aziraphale hadn’t gotten through to Heaven, not in any meaningful way. He could have taken the book to Crowley’s-- no, brought Crowley in with him. By the time Hell tracked him down they’d have had their answers, why hadn’t he suggested hiding Crowley in the shop? What a fool he’d let himself be, and now…

He remembers this office, perching on the corner of the heavy desk to wait for Crowley to finish up with some bit of work, Crowley rising to kiss him. The books on the shelves that are from his own overflowing collection. He’d been the one to buy the curtains… 

He staggers to his feet. Worlds crash over him, memories bursting against his mind. Crowley’s sketch of La Gioconda-- Aziraphale remembers the two of them modeling for the artist, at Crowley’s insistence. No painting was ever made from those sketches. The second chair Crowley had put in so that Aziraphale wouldn’t always be perched on the edge of his desk when he came to pull him from his work, the way he’d always perched there just the same to be nearer to him. He makes it back down the hallway, still reeling, sick to his stomach. The couch, Crowley pressing him down into the cushions, not even to make love, just to lie with him there with the television droning softly in the background. The kitchen, Crowley’s refrigerator stuffed with Aziraphale’s favorites, Crowley making him dinners over the years, becoming a better cook over time… 

He moves back down to the bedroom, and the flood of memories turns more painful than he could have ever imagined. The sunlight streaming in each morning, stripes of brightness and cool shadow draped like silk over Crowley’s naked back, the shapes of his shoulderblades. How Aziraphale would kiss the knobs of his spine and feel him wake. How his wings would unfold and spread to fill the room. Making love in the vast bed, in a sea of black satin. The palatial bath and the scents… all the salts and soaps and lotions, because Crowley loved these little luxuries, and encouraged Aziraphale to more than a little hedonism. It had always been so easy to feed his inner hedonist, in that bath.

He shall have to take care of the plants, if he survives to…

Once he’s out of the city, flight is easier. Once he’s out of the city, he can simply glide all the way to the air base. When he touches down, he can see the boy. At least, he can only assume, though the dog at the child’s heels hardly seems hellish. He feels a sudden fondness for the creature, and can’t imagine destroying it, even for the world. If this is the beast, it’s no more hellish than his own dear Crowley.

Crowley…

Crowley would tell him to be hard, if he had to be. Crowley would tell him to hold firm. But could Crowley destroy the child he sees now? Such an ordinary boy, with an ordinary dog, ordinary friends. If he weren’t about to bring on the end of all things, he’d just be… 

What did he think he would accomplish, coming here? What did he think he would do against the horsepersons and the armies of Hell and Heaven? It’s too late to simply remove the hound from the equation, Aziraphale is too late, just as he’d been too late to save Crowley, his Crowley, his only…

What did he come here for? Who does he think he is? No one, that’s who-- not now. Not on his own. This was always meant to be the both of them. Aziraphale hasn’t even got a weapon, he hasn’t got anything. He’s all alone, helpless… 

There’s a roaring sound, like the approach of the flames of Hell itself, and he turns to face the onslaught, whatever it is. The horsepersons are already here, the boy… whatever else is coming, at least he will face it on his feet. At least, whatever happens to him, he can promise Crowley that. He’s facing the end on his feet.

Perhaps it’s the real hellhound coming, and the dog is just a dog.

Without a weapon, can he fight a hellhound?

But it is  _ not _ a hellhound that comes screeching around the corner and into sight. It’s a vaguely car-shaped fire. It skids to a halt, though how it does so is a mystery, as it seems to have left its tires behind some ways back. And then Crowley steps out of it.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cries out, running to him.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley comes striding to meet him, catches him in his arms and spins him around. Aziraphale pours every ounce of his despair and relief into answering the kiss Crowley gives him. 

“How are you here?”

“Notes.” He pulls the page from his breast pocket. Aziraphale’s notes, the notes he had dropped back in his shop. “Aziraphale, how are  _ you _ ? You were-- The shop was--”

He shudders and holds on tighter, and Aziraphale is only too happy to do the same.

“I saw… your flat. The holy water, the-- the--  _ gunk _ .”

“Not me. I couldn’t find you anywhere, the shop was up in flames, I thought--”

“Flames?” The candles, the portal, his haste, his wings, the shelves falling over in his wake, had he done that? All of his books, all of their things… “Oh-- oh, Crowley!”

“I thought you had been destroyed. That they knew somehow, that they went after you before coming to me, or maybe it was your own side, but I-- oh,  _ Aziraphale _ .”

They need time they don’t have, to drink each other in. To whisper ‘I’m here’ into each other’s mouths, unable to do anything but seek out another kiss. He can’t quite fathom his shop in flames, but if it’s somehow the price he must pay to have Crowley alive, if there’s a cosmic balance to be struck… he can survive losing all he owned. He can start anew-- or, he won’t be around to enjoy it anyhow. Either way. He has Crowley now. 

“There’s nowhere for us to go.” He murmurs, sagging against Crowley’s chest. “They… they hung up on me, Heaven. They want the war.”

“Of course they do. And… no amnesty?”

“They didn’t even listen to my request. I explained, all you’ve done, but…”

Crowley simply nods, as if it’s all as he’d expected. 

“I thought they would love this world, I thought they’d have to.” Aziraphale continues.

“They don’t have to. They never did. You did, because you live here. And I did. But the rest of that lot? It’s just someone else’s ant farm, to them, that they’ve got to occasionally shake up a bit or drop a crumb into, it’s not real to them. But it’s real to him, I’d wager.”

Crowley points, and Aziraphale turns to look, to see the little lost antichrist and friends banishing the horsepersons. A sword clatters to the ground, and Aziraphale gasps softly.

“How do you think it all worked out? We didn’t… we didn’t even do anything, with this one.”

“No, but neither did Hell on their own. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe all this time it’s been enough.”

Crowley clings a little tighter, when Beelzebub and the Metatron both appear, hissing out a weak bit of cursing and hiding his face against Aziraphale’s neck.

“This is it, then… they’re here to strike us down.”

“They’re here for the boy.” Aziraphale shakes his head, gripping onto Crowley right back. Heaven may not care enough about him to lift a finger, but Crowley… Crowley’s a man without a country, now. Hell came for him and he was victorious once, but… Everything’s come this far. Everything’s come this far and he  _ can’t _ stop now, not now he has Crowley back. He strides up to where the Metatron is attempting to talk to the antichrist, Crowley right on his heels even as he slides himself between the arguing parties. 

No sooner has he posed the question of the Ineffability of the Plan, great or otherwise, and whether this might not be  _ it _ , no sooner has protest erupted from both divine and infernal parties, than the Metatron goes suddenly stiff, the glow around him brighter, his face blanker. 

“THANK YOU, THAT WILL BE ALL.” His voice booms-- it is rather more booming than usual. “OUR APOLOGIES, CROWLEY, BUT WE NEEDED A DEMON.”

“... What?” Aziraphale spreads his wings a little wider, as if to shield Crowley. 

“WE NEEDED A DEMON, AND AN ANGEL, TO LOVE THE WORLD.”

“But we-- but we didn’t even… none of this…”

“YOU WERE WHERE YOU WERE NEEDED, JUST THE SAME.” He says, and then coughs. “Ah. Well, then. I suppose the war is off. And… yes, yes, very well.”

“Don’t think you’ll get off so easy.” Beelzebub adds, to Crowley. “You’re the lucky chump who gets to be the only casualty in a war that won’t happen. Because his father won’t be so happy.”

Crowley moans wordlessly, as Beelzebub and the Metatron both vanish. The earth rumbles.

“That’ll be him. Aziraphale… Aziraphale, go.”

“What? Are you-- Have you completely lost all of your marbles, Crowley?”

“Take the humans and go.” He sweeps an arm to indicate the children-- at least, the children who are not antichrists-- and a couple of others who had just stumbled from one of the buildings. “You can’t fight him. You know you can’t.”

“And you can?”

“I wasn’t going to try. Wouldn’t do me any good. But if you hurry, you can still save them. Aziraphale…”

“I can’t survive losing you twice.” He shakes his head. “If you face destruction, I face destruction.”

“It’s not destruction I’m worried about, it’s eternal torment.” His voice cracks. “Not you, Aziraphale… I can’t see that happen to you.”

“We’ve carried each other this far. We’ve both been afraid. We’ve both wondered if it was even possible. But I can’t leave you to this, I can’t. Either we reap the rewards together or we’re punished together.”

He holds his hand out. Crowley hesitates, then takes it, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“Aziraphale, don’t do this. Please. I can handle eternal torment, if I can know you’re safe.”

“But I can’t be safe if I know you’re suffering. Crowley…”

Crowley’s own wings come out. He gathers Aziraphale into an embrace, wrapped up in them, and kisses him. 

“Don’t speak.” He whispers. “If it’s all over for me, if you won’t leave me, then let this be the last thing I remember. Let me imagine we’re anywhere but here.”

“The bed and breakfast.” Aziraphale whispers back. “Waking up in each other’s arms on holiday.”

He says no more than that. Crowley knows the morning he means. Their window faced south, the light was soft in the morning. It was barely coming on spring, but they were warm. Oftentimes, he curled himself around Crowley’s back to keep him warm, pressing close as he was able, but the shapes of them lent themselves more readily to the other way around. That was how they woke, Crowley spooned up behind him, so much of their bodies in contact. There had been a hand grabbing at Aziraphale’s chest even as Crowley slept, too sleepy and free from intent to call a grope. Just a companionable sort of thing. And then he had yawned until his jaw clicked, and kissed the back of Aziraphale’s neck, and rubbed his belly a while. They had had no pressing business. Crowley had been in the mood to touch, just to touch. His hands had wandered everywhere in a gentle and undemanding fashion, and then…

And then Aziraphale had rolled onto his back and Crowley had rolled onto Aziraphale, their noses bumping together, a laugh passing between them. A laugh, a hundred sweet kisses. They’d flown the day before and they would fly again, after tea and toast and marmalade in bed. Crowley made indecent suggestions just to make him blush and squirm and hide his face, tittering helplessly into his hands at the very idea, but they hadn’t followed through on any of them. It was a pleasure just to have the idea, that morning. It was pleasure enough to feel the world stretched on before them. And it wasn’t only indecent suggestions-- he had also promised to buy souvenirs, the way people did on holiday, as if they could be human tourists enjoying themselves. As if they could forget about what they were and simply be in the world. 

It had been the sweetest morning. The world was healing, spring was coming, and everything felt possible. Everything felt laid out like a banquet for just the two of them, for forever.

A very English ‘what’s going on here?’ cuts through the safe haven of Crowley’s wings and arms and lips, and so they emerge, blinking, into the real world. 

No Satan, no demonic horde baying for Crowley’s blood because they didn’t get their war, only a put-upon looking man struggling to load four children and their bicycles and one very un-hellish hound into his car, while a couple of young persons look on, in their own confusion.

“Oh!” Aziraphale starts, recognizing one. “I have your book, m’dear.”

Her face screws up into… something. She seems to go through every possible expression in a very brief span of time.

“You keep it.” She says at last. 

“That’s very kind of you.” Aziraphale smiles, a little sadly. At least now he has one… all his other books of prophecy, they must be… well. He has one. And time to rebuild.

“Not that I’m complaining, but I feel as if something ought to have happened to me.” Crowley frowns.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about  _ that _ .” The little antichrist calls to him, before his father succeeds in getting him into the car.

Even with that assurance, it takes time to relax. The bookshop is restored, come morning. The hideous, sulphurous smell and puddle of demon goo gone from Crowley’s flat. But Crowley and Aziraphale keep their suite at the Ritz just the same. Aziraphale enjoys going over his books again-- and finding a few new ones-- and Crowley sees to his plants, but when Crowley tries to go home with Aziraphale, he can’t sleep without dreams of engulfing flame, and Aziraphale finds he bursts into tears at the oddest times in Crowley’s flat. 

The Ritz is lovely, of course. They go down and eat in the restaurant some of the time, but with their suite, they have a little kitchenette they can cook in. It’s nice, but it’s not home… not forever. It’s just a little holiday after the end of the world. Just until they can bear going back to the life they knew before.

“I’m thinking of taking up something new.” Aziraphale says idly, as the two of them cook together of an evening. “No idea what, though.”

“Mm. I’ve thought the same, but… what haven’t we done?”

“I don’t hardly know.” He laughs, and presents a cheek to be kissed before he will surrender his chopped vegetables to Crowley’s waiting pan. “But I have time to find out.”

“That bed and breakfast, Aziraphale…”

“Yes?”

“It went up for sale.”

“Oh, that’s… well, maybe that’s best. If the new owners might open it up again.”

“The new owners will not. That is… unless that might be your something new?”

Aziraphale’s mouth hangs open a moment, and then he throws his arms around Crowley’s neck, kissing him enthusiastically. 

It doesn’t take long for them to settle in. It’s not as Aziraphale remembers, no, but it’s still familiar. The view from the bedroom is the same. He decides against running a bed and breakfast out of the house as his something new-- instead he takes up beekeeping. It feels right, somehow.

London is still there. They have places they can go back to, and re-learn how to be in, when they feel like it. But for now, the house that was once a bed and breakfast is the haven they need, to heal from the stresses of the past eleven years. And in town, they walk arm in arm, and learn to live a life where they don’t look over their shoulders whenever they are out together. And Aziraphale likes to think that this is just the beginning of a happily ever after for the ages.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art] Together Forever With You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550677) by [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/pseuds/Nonexistenz)




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